Analysis of Sugars by Micellar Liquid Chromatography with Uv Detection

A micellar liquid chromatographic procedure is described for simultaneous determination of sugars previously derivatized with 4-aminobenzoic acid ethyl ester (4-ABEE). The optimized conditions, determined by use of the super-modified simplex method, were temperature 30°C, mobile phase containing 17.3 mM sodium dodecyl sulfate, 0.01 M phosphate buffer, pH 6.69, and 7.73% (v/v) ethanol, and UV detection at 307 nm. The 4-ABEE derivatives were separated in 10 min but a peak assigned to excess reagent appears at 13 min. Analytical data including linearity (r > 0.9987), limit of detection (35.47–81.74 μg mL), precision (RSD < 5.73%), and accuracy, measured by determination of recovery (>91%), support the usefulness of the proposed method for measuring sugars. When the proposed method was applied to the analysis of sugars in an infant formula and a sample of sorghum syrup the results were in good agreement with the content reported by manufacturer and with results obtained by refractive index detection.