[Determination of taurine in foods by high performance liquid chromatography]

Taurine (2-aminoethanesulfonic acid) was quantitated by reversed-phase liquid chromatography on a C18 resolve column (ZOBAX ODS) using a mobile phase of methyl alcohol-phosphate buffer (pH = 4.9). L-glutamine was used as the internal standard. Before separation, the sample was extracted with 0.2 mol/L sulfosalicylic acid solution and cleaned up with dual ion exchange column chromatography. The amino acid was derived with o-phthalaldehyde to form an amino acid adduct which was monitored at 340 nm by UV detector. The HPLC method for taurine analysis in foods showed the precision (relative standard deviation) is better than 5%. The recoveries are more than 95% and the detection limit is 12 ng of taurine.