HIGH-PERFORMANCE LIQUID CHROMATOGRAPHY FOR THE ANALYSIS OF ASCORBIC ACID CONTANT IN SOME FRUIT AND VEGETABLE VARIETIES

Some strawberry, melon, bean, orange,litchi and water spinach were analyzed for ascorbic acid content by high-performance liquid chor-matography (HPLC) with a UV detector at 254nm. The results were com-pared with the dyetitration method using 2.6-dichlorophenol-indophenol and the values of ascorbic acid by both HPLC and titration were comparable. The mobile phase was made of 0.008 M phosphate buffer (pH-5.0) with 0.002M tetrabtuyl ammonium hydroxide. Extraction procedures using 3% citric acid were compared with those using acetic acid and me-taphosphoric acid.The recovery values were more than 90% and minimum detectable quantity was 0.05μg. The study showed that HPLC was a simple, rapid, sensitive method for the analysis of ascorbic acid content in fruits and vegetables. The highly variable of ascorbic acid between bean and litchi varieties was obtained. Authers suggest that the variety with high content of ascorbic acid must be used as parent plant in future breeding work.