Reducing Organic Acid Analysis Times Using SIL-30AC Autosampler

Organic acid counter-ions found in food and drugs are considered important components as they decide the flavor of food and properties of drugs. Food in particular contains a large number of substances analyzable with LC-MS, though LC-MS is unable to detect formic acid and acetic acid in foods due to its use of formic acid and acetic acid in the mobile phase.
Combining ion exclusion mode HPLC with post-column reaction detection (post-column pH-buffered electrical conductivity detection) is an approach that does not use formic acid or acetic acid in the mobile phase, and therefore allows the selective and highly sensitive detection of formic acid-containing and acetic acid-containing organic acids. However, this approach uses 2 columns to achieve high resolution separation, which increases time to detection. Another problem with this technique is the large number of constituents targeted by food analysis, and the time required to analyze standard reference solutions for calibration curve creation. This article describes using the overlapping function of SIL-30AC to shorten the time required for continuous analysis of organic acids.