Simultaneous Analysis of Water- and Fat-Soluble Vitamins in Beverages Using an ODS-Modified Metal-Doped Column

Vitamins play vital roles in the metabolic activities of the body. However, because they all cannot be synthesized in sufficient quantities in the body, they must be ingested either in our meals or by other means, such as tablets. Vitamins can be classified into two groups, water-soluble and fat-soluble, and their analysis is generally conducted by high-performance liquid chromatography. The water-soluble type consists mainly of highly polar basic components which exhibit weak retention in analysis by reversed-phase liquid chromatography. Since they exhibit weak retention, the analysis is typically conducted using ion-pair reagents. That makes it difficult to apply gradient elution. On the other hand, the fat-soluble type consists of hydrophobic components. They are usually analyzed by reversed-phase liquid chromatography with organic solvent mobile phases or normal-phase liquid chromatography.
In this study, a Shim-pack MAqC-ODS I was used to analyze water- and fat-soluble vitamins in a single method. This column contains ODS-modified and metal-doped stationary phase, so it was able to retain the weakly-retained components without ion-pairing reagents. In addition, by using a 100% organic solvent mobile phase after the water-soluble vitamins were eluted, fat-soluble vitamins were also able to be analyzed.