Determination of β-carotene in dry okra by reverse phase high performance liquid chromatography

Okra was a popular health food in the world, and it could be used for many purposes, such as a vegetable, soup ingredient and fat substitute in chocolate.In this paper, a method was developed for the determination of β-carotene in dried okra by reverse phase high performance liquid chromatography (RP- HPLC) .After the sample was extracted with ethanol, the mixture was saponified at room temperature overnight, and then the saponification liquid was extracted with n-hexane.The extract was separated on a C18 column (250mm×4.6mm, 5μm) at 30℃, which was eluted with acetonitrile-methyl alcohol-ethyl acetate (88∶10∶2, v∶v∶v) at a rate of 1mL/min, and the signal was detected at 453nm.The results showed that:β-carotene was linear over the concentration range of 0.1¹0.0mg/L with a correlation coefficient of 0.996;the recovery of β-carotene in dried okra was 82.4%⁹4.0%, the relative standard deviations (RSD) was 2.28%⁵.43%, the limit of detection (LOD) of β-carotene in dried okra was 0.08mg/kg, the limit of quantification (LOQ) was 0.26mg/kg.This method was reliable and accurate, and it could meet the demands of actual measurement.