Ultra high performance liquid chromatography with mass spectrometry method for the simultaneous determination of phenolic constituents in honey from various floral sources using multiwalled carbon nanotubes as extraction sorbents

Abstract

An ultra high performance liquid chromatography with mass spectrometry method has been developed for the simultaneous separation, identification and determination of 22 phenolic constituents in honey from various floral sources from Yemen. Solid-phase extraction was used for extraction of the target phenolic constituents from honey samples, while multiwalled carbon nanotubes were used as solid-phase adsorbent. The chromatographic separation of all phenolic constituents was performed on a BEH C18 column using a linear gradient elution with a binary mobile phase mixture of aqueous 0.1% formic acid and methanol. The quantitation was carried out in selected ion reaction monitoring acquisition mode. The total amount of phenolic acids, flavonoids and other phenols in each analyzed honey was found in the range of 338-3312, 122-5482 and 2.4-1342 μg/100 g of honey, respectively. 4-Hydroxybenzoic acid was found to be the major phenolic acid. The main detected flavonoid was chrysin, while cinnamic acid was found to be the major other phenol compound. The regeneration of solid phase adsorbent to be reused and recovery results confirm that the proposed method could be potentially used for the routine analysis of phenolic constituents in honey extract.

Keywords: Honey; Mass spectrometry; Multiwalled carbon nanotubes; Phenolic constituents; Ultra high performance liquid chromatography.