DEVELOPMENT OF A ROBOTIC-HPLC DETERMINATION OF RIBOFLAVIN VITAMERS INFOOD

The need for laboratory automation is fuelled by the demands for bette r nutrient composition values based on large numbers of representative food samples. A fully automated method for the simultaneous analysis of the individual riboflavin vitamers in foods has been developed. It combines robotic extraction with HPLC quantitation. The robotic method was compared with a similar manual extraction using a variety of unfo rtified foods that are significant dietary sources of total riboflavin (TRF). The polymer-based columns used in the HPLC separation were fou nd to be sensitive to the total organic carbon (TOC) content of 'HPLC- grade' water. Several procedures of varying complexity were successful ly applied in order to remove interfering artifacts from the water. (C ) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.