Determination of phenolic compounds using high-performance liquid chromatography with Ce-Tween 20 chemiluminescence detection

A novel method for the simultaneous determination of phenolic compounds such as salicylic acid, resorcinol, phloroglucinol, p-hydroxybenzoic acid, 2,4-dihydroxybenzoic acid, and m-nitrophenol by high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) coupled with chemiluminescence (CL) detection was developed. The procedure was based on the chemiluminescent enhancement by phenolic compounds of the cerium(IV)-Tween 20 system in a sulfuric acid medium. The separation was carried out with an isocratic elution or with a gradient elution using a mixture of methanol and 1.5% acetic acid. For six phenolic compounds, the detection limits (3σ) were in the range 1.40-5.02 ng/ml and the relative standard deviations (n=11) for the determination of 0.1 μg/ml compounds were in the range 1.9-2.9%. The CL reaction was well compatible with the mobile phase of HPLC, no baseline drift often occurred in HPLC-CL detection was observed with a gradient elution. The method has been successfully applied to the determination of salicylic acid and resorcinol in Dermatitis Clear Tincture and p-hydroxybenzoic acid in apple juices.