ANALYSIS OF PRESERVATIVES IN FATTY FOODS BY HPLC

A method is described that permits the simultaneous determination of benzoic and sorbic acid and the methyl, ethyl, propyl, butyl and heptyl esters of p-hydroxybenzoic acid. In a few favorable cases o-phenylphenol can also be determined by the same chromatogram. Isocratic high performance liquid chromatography equipment is used. The advantage of this method is that the 2 acids and the p-hydroxybenzoate esters can be determined together in the presence of fat. Gradients and additional sample preparation steps involving the separation of the preservatives from fat and/or the separation of the acids from the esters or vice versa are not required.