COMPARATIVE QUANTITATIVE-ANALYSIS OF SUCROSE AND RELATED-COMPOUNDS USING ION-EXCHANGE AND REVERSE-PHASE CHROMATOGRAPHIC METHODS

Two analytical methods of sugar determination, namely ion exchange chr omatography on an anionic resin coupled with electrochemical detection , and reverse phase chromatography on Nucleosil-NH2 resin equipped wit h a light scattering detector were tested and compared as regards thei r rapidity, sensitivity and accuracy with sucrose, fructose, glucose, raffinose, maltose, arabinose, fucose, rhamnose and xylose. Excellent resolution and highly reproducible results were obtained in both cases . Greater sensitivity up to the picomolar range was possible however o nly with ion exchange chromatography. Reverse phase chromatography was successfully applied to the time course of sucrose hydrolysis under c hemical (acid) and enzymatic (invertase) conditions. The hydrolysis wa s monitored by determining sucrose degradation and the corresponding f ormation of glucose and fructose. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science B.V.