High-speed chromatographic analysis of high-fructose corn syrup for process monitoring

High-speed chromatography is coupled with numerical methods for analyzing unresolved chromatograms and applied to a process analysis of high-fructose corn syrup. A column selection process is demonstrated where a minimum amount of resolution is sacrificed in order to decrease analysis time from over 5 min to 25 sec. Two data analysis methods, linear least squares regression and the sequential chromatogram ratio technique coupled with sequential suppression, are compared for their ability to quantitate the poorly resolved chromatograms. Both methods fit pure component analyte chromatograms, collected on a computer, to a sample chromatogram with unknown concentrations of each analyte. For a high-fructose corn syrup sample with a nominal fructose concentration of 55%, linear least squares analysis gave a fructose concentration percentage of 57.2 +/- 0.9%. The sequential chromatogram ratio algorithm gave a fructose concentration percentage of 57.9 +/- 0.7%.