Simultaneous Carbohydrate Chromatography and Unsuppressed Ion Chromatography in Detecting Fruit Juices Adulteration

This paper is the first one investigating the simultaneous use of carbohydrate chromatography and ion chromatography to obtain in one run conclusive data on juice’s authenticity. A hybrid liquid chromatographic system with conductivity and differential refractive index detection, equipped with an Universal Cation 7u column for cation analysis and with a EC 250/4 Nucleodur 100-5 NH₂ RP column for carbohydrate analysis, was designed for this study. In less than 18 min, this configuration can separate simultaneously six cations (lithium, sodium, ammonium, potassium, magnesium and calcium) and four carbohydrates (fructose, glucose, saccharose and maltose). Commercial orange and apple juices obtained from the Romanian market were analyzed during this research.