SEPARATION OF CAROTENOIDS BY HIGH-PERFORMANCE LIQUID-CHROMATOGRAPHY WITH POLYMERIC AND MONOMERIC OCTADECYLSILICA STATIONARY PHASES

In addition to their value in the nutritional context, the carotenoids have other important functions, including some epidemiological significance in disease prevention. With increasing interest in the carotenoids methods for their characterization and quantification in various matrices are essential particularly with regard to epidemiologic studies dealing with diet and health. Since high-performance liquid chromatography (LC) is the most promising analytical method for this purpose, having high reliability, high selectivity and quantification ability, this work presents the evaluation of reversed-phase LC methods using polymeric and monomeric octadecylsilica (ODS) stationary phases for the highly selective separation of carotenoids. It has been found that the polymeric ODS has a better selectivity for carotenoids, taking account of their molecular shape and size recognition, than the monomeric ODS phase and that the former is more suitable than the latter for separations of the carotenoids.