Quantitation of glucosamine from shrimp waste using HPLC

This work presents a high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) method for the quantitation of glucosamine in chitin. The method includes an acid hydrolysis of chitin. The chromatographic separation is achieved using a Hypersil ODS 5-microm column (250 x 4.6 mm) at 38 degrees C, with precolumn derivatization with 9-fluorenylmethyl-chloroformate and UV detection (lambda = 264 nm). The mobile phase is a mixture of mobile phase A 30 mM ammonium phosphate (pH 6.5) in 15:85 methanol-water (v/v)], mobile phase B 15:85 methanol-water (v/v)], and mobile phase C 90:10 acetonitrile-water (v/v)], with a flow rate of 1.2 mL/min. The HPLC method proposed showed adequate repeatability (relative standard deviation, 5.8%), accuracy (92.7% recovery), and sensitivity, with a detection limit of 2 microg/mL. The method is successfully applied to the quantitation of glucosamine for the determination of the purity of chitin from shrimp waste.