Magnetic retrieval of chitosan: extraction of bioactive constituents from green tea beverage samples

A new solid-phase extraction mode for magnetic retrieval of chitosan combined with high-performance liquid chromatography-diode array detection was proposed for the pre-concentration and determination of flavonoids in green tea beverage samples. In the experiment, chitosan was used as sorbents for the extraction of target analytes; after completion of the extraction process, Fe(3)O(4) nanoparticles acted as carrier to retrieve chitosan from the sample solution. Some important parameters influenced extraction efficiency of flavonoids, including the extraction mode, amounts of chitosan, pH of sample solution, extraction time, salt addition, amounts of Fe(3)O(4) nanoparticles, desorption solvent and desroption time, were optimized. Under the optimum conditions, the recoveries of analytes done on samples spiked with the target analytes were between 96.4% and 108.6%; relative standard deviations ranged from 0.6% to 8.7%. The correlation coefficients varied from 0.9917 to 0.9988. The limits of detection ranged from 5.4 to 16.8 ng mL(-1) at a signal-to-noise ratio of 3. All four different brands of green tea beverage samples were successfully analyzed by the proposed method.