Quantitative Evaluation of the Pyruvic Acid Content in Onion Samples with a Fully Validated High-Performance Liquid Chromatography Method

Onion cultivars with low pungency have been increasing in popularity because they are more attractive for fresh, uncooked use. The pyruvic acid amount is commonly used as a measure of onion pungency. For the first time the validation of a reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography method for the quantitative analysis of pyruvic acid in onion extracts was carried out. The established chromatography method based on the use of a 50 mM phosphate buffer (pH 2.5) eluent system provided good precision (RSD% in the range of 1.25-1.29, in the long-period) and accuracy (recovery% in the range of 97.70-111.62, in the long-period) as well as appreciably low limit of detection and limit of quantitation values (11.03 and 33.41 ng/mL, respectively). The validated method proved successful in the analysis of the onion extract from Dorata di Parma cultivar after a preliminary solid-phase extraction step. A significant adherence with results from previous spectrophotometric determinations turned out.