%0 Journal Article
%T High-Performance Anion-Exchange Chromatography Coupled with Pulsed Electrochemical Detection as a Powerful Tool to Evaluate Carbohydrates of Food Interest: Principles and Applications
%A Claudio Corradini
%A Antonella Cavazza
%A Chiara Bignardi
%J International Journal of Carbohydrate Chemistry
%D 2012
%I Hindawi Publishing Corporation
%R 10.1155/2012/487564
%X Specific HPLC approaches are essential for carbohydrate characterization in food products. Carbohydrates are weak acids with pKa values in the range 12¨C14 and, consequently, at high pH can be transformed into oxyanions, and can be readily separated using highly efficient anion-exchange columns. Electrochemical detection in HPLC has been proven to be a powerful analytical technique for the determination of compounds containing electroactive groups; pulsed amperometric detection of carbohydrates is favourably performed by taking advantage of their electrocatalytic oxidation mechanism at a gold working electrode in a basic media. High-performance Anion Exchange Chromatography (HPAEC) at high pH coupled with pulsed electrochemical detection (PED) is one of the most useful techniques for carbohydrate determination either for routine monitoring or research application. This technique has been of a great impact on the analysis of oligo- and polysaccharides. The compatibility of electrochemical detection with gradient elution, coupled with the high selectivity of the anion-exchange stationary phases, allows mixtures of simple sugars, oligo- and polysaccharides to be separated with high resolution in a single run. A few reviews have been written on HPAEC-PED of carbohydrates of food interest in the last years. In this paper the recent developments in this field are examined. 1. Introduction The analysis of carbohydrates in food has extreme nutritional importance because they are a primary source of energy and have healthy beneficial effects resulting mainly from dietary fibers and other unavailable carbohydrates resistant to digestion. In food industry they are largely used as technological coadjuvants in order to obtain physicochemical and selected sensorial characteristics for some products. Moreover, they are suitable to be considered as markers for quality and authenticity control. Several analytical techniques have been proposed for carbohydrates analysis; among them, high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) coupled to different detection systems. This technique offers the advantages of high resolution, fast analysis, direct injection of the sample without or with little pretreatment, and easy of automation. Different operation modes of HPLC have been applied to the analysis of carbohydrates of food interest. HPLC of carbohydrates is frequently performed using cation-exchange resins based on copolymers in protonated or metal ion forms. Metal-loaded strong cation exchangers such as sulphonated styrene-divinylbenzene copolymers in calcium, lithium,
%U http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ijcc/2012/487564/