Analysis of tocopherols in vegetable oils by high-performance liquid chromatography: Comparison of fluorescence and evaporative light-scattering detection

A comparison of the responses of an evaporative light-scattering detector (ELSD) and a fluorescence detector for tocopherols in vegetable oils by high-performance liquid chromatography is presented. The tocopherols were separated from acylglycerols by gel-permeation chromatography (GPC). The tocopherol fraction was collected off a set of four GPC columns with a mobile phase of methylene chloride before separation on a normal-phase silica column with a mobile phase of hexane/isopropanol, 99.7:0.3 (vol/vol). An internal standard of 5,7 dimethyltocol, which was detected by both the ELSD and fluorescence detector, was used to obtain quantitative data. The fluorescence detector was ten times more sensitive than the ELSD. ?-Tocopherol was the major tocopherol detected in the vegetable oils studied and ranged from 24.1–93.3 mg/100 g. The amounts of tocopherols found in the vegetable oils agreed favorably with the literature values.