Rapid Trichloroacetic Acid Extraction and Liquid Chromatography Method for Determination of Nicotinamide in Commercial Cereals

Determination of niacin in fortified infant and dairy products has been accomplished using a variety of analytical liquid chromatography (LC) methods. Applications of these LC techniques to other food matrices suffer due to the presence of endogenous absorbing peaks at 260 nm that co-chromatograph with the nicotinic acid and nicotinamide vitamers. We have successfully adapted the LC method of Woollard and Indyk for the determination of nicotinamide in reference and commercial cereal products. Unbound nicotinamide in fortified cereal was extracted with 0.6M tri-chloroacetic acid and chromatographed on a C18 reversed-phase column using a mobile phase of 75% methanol and water (pH 2.8, with formic acid) with sodium dioctylsulphosuccinate (0.1%) as the ion-pairing agent. Using Spectral Analysis ChromQuest software, a three-dimensional view showed only nicotinamide under the LC peak. Similarity index spectral matches of nicotinamide standard and the LC peak were ≈100%, indicating the absence of interf...