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Determination of carbon isotope ratios for honey samples by means of a liquid chromatography/isotope ratio mass spectrometry system coupled with a post‐column pump
Author(s) -
Kawashima Hiroto,
Suto Momoka,
Suto Nana
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
rapid communications in mass spectrometry
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.528
H-Index - 136
eISSN - 1097-0231
pISSN - 0951-4198
DOI - 10.1002/rcm.8170
Subject(s) - chemistry , chromatography , isotope ratio mass spectrometry , mass spectrometry , fructose , organic chemistry
Rationale Liquid chromatography/isotope ratio mass spectrometry (LC/IRMS) has been used to authenticate and trace products such as honey, wine, and lemon juice, and compounds such as caffeine and pesticides. However, LC/IRMS has several disadvantages, including the high cost of the CO 2 membrane and blocking by solidified sodium persulfate. Here, we developed an improved system for determining carbon isotope ratios using LC/IRMS. Methods The main improvement was the use of a post‐column pump. Using the improved system, we determined δ 13 C values for glucose with high accuracy and precision (0.1‰ and 0.1‰, respectively; n = 3). The glucose, fructose, disaccharide, trisaccharide, and organic acid constituents of honey samples were analyzed using LC/IRMS. Results The δ 13 C values for glucose, fructose, disaccharides, trisaccharides, and organic acids ranged from −27.0 to −24.2‰, −26.8 to −24.0‰, −28.8 to −24.0‰, −27.8 to −22.8‰, and − 30.6 to −27.4‰, respectively. The analysis time was a third to a half of that required for analysis by previously reported methods. Conclusions The column flow rate could be arbitrarily adjusted with the post‐column pump. We applied the improved method to 26 commercial honey samples. Our results can be expected to be useful for other researchers who use LC/IRMS.