A fast, simple, and reliable hydrophilic interaction liquid chromatography method for the determination of ascorbic and isoascorbic acids

A reliable method for the determination of total vitamin C must be able to resolve ascorbic acid (AA) and the epimeric isoascorbic acid (IAA) and determine the sum of AA and its oxidized form dehydroascorbic acid. AA and IAA are polar molecules with a low retention time in conventional reversed phase systems, and hence of difficult resolution. Hydrophilic interaction chromatography using a TSKgel Amide-80 stationary phase with isocratic elution was successful in resolving the two epimers. The column was compatible with injections of high concentrations of metaphosphoric acid, tris(2-carboxyethyl)-phosphine, and EDTA without drift of baseline and retention time. Total AA and IAA were extracted, stabilized, and reduced in one step at 40 °C, using 5% m-phosphoric acid, 2 mM of EDTA, and 2 mM of tris(2-carboxyethyl)-phosphine as reducing agent. This simple, fast, and robust hydrophilic interaction chromatography-DAD method was applied for the analysis of food products namely fruit juices, chestnut, and ham and also in pharmaceutical and multivitamin tablets. Method validation was performed on the food products, including parameters of precision, accuracy, linearity, limit of detection, and quantification (LOQ). The absence of matrix interferences was assessed by the standard addition method and Youden calibration. The method was fast, accurate, and precise with a LOQ_AA of 1.5 mg/L and LOQ_IAA of 3.7 mg/L. The simple experimental procedure, completed in 1 h, the possibility of using IAA as an internal standard, and low probability of artifacts are the major advantages of the proposed method for the routine determination of these compounds in a large number of samples.