Abstract
The development of a sensitive pre-column derivatization high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) method for determination of sucralose is reported. Sucralose is converted into a strongly ultraviolet (UV)-absorbing derivative, possessing strong absorption at 260 nm, by treatment with p-nitrobenzoyl chloride (PNBCl).
Homogenized samples were dialyzed and washed with a Bond Elut ENV cartridge, then the eluate was evaporated to dryness and the residue was derivatized. Subsequently, the sucralose derivative was purified with hexane-ethyl acetate (9 : 1) in a silica cartridge, and then the sucralose derivative was eluted with acetone. HPLC was performed on a phenyl column, using acetonitrile-water (73 : 27) as a mobile phase with UV detection (260 nm).
The calibration curve was linear in the range of 1 μg/mL to 50 μg/mL of sucralose. The recoveries of sucralose from eight kinds of foods spiked at the levels of 0.20 and 0.05 g/kg of sucralose were more than 76.2% with SD values in the range from 0.90% to 4.31%. The quantitative limit of the developed method was 0.005 g/kg for sucralose in samples.