High performance liquid chromatography method for the simultaneous determination of α-, γ- and δ-tocopherol in vegetable oils in presence of hexadecyltrimethylammonium bromide/n-propanol in mobile phase

A rapid methodology by RP-HPLC, 10 min of total analysis time, for the analysis of alpha-, gamma- and delta-tocopherol in vegetable oils, in presence of retinol, retinyl acetate and alpha-tocopherol acetate was developed. Hexadecyltrimethylammonium bromide 0.1 M/n-propanol 65% (v/v) are used as mobile phase. Tocopherols were detected using UV and fluorescence detection. The quantification limits for alpha-, gamma- and delta-tocopherols were 0.28, 0.12 and 0.23 mg L-1, respectively. The method yielded satisfactory results when it was applied to vegetable oils and thus, it is suitable for their quality control. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.