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Published on: July 11, 2014
Boric acid as a mobile phase additive for high performance liquid chromatography separation of ribose, arabinose and
Cassandra De Muynck1, Joeri Beauprez, Wim Soetaert
1Laboratory of Industrial Microbiology and Biocatalysis, Department of Biochemical and Microbial Technology, Ghent University, Coupure links 653, B-9000 Gent, Belgium. Cassandra.DeMuynck@UGent.be
Abstract:
A new high performance liquid chromatographic (HPLC) method is described for the analysis of ribose, arabinose and ribulose mixtures obtained from (bio)chemical isomerization processes. These processes gain importance since the molecules can be used for the synthesis of antiviral therapeutics. The HPLC method uses boric acid as a mobile phase additive to enhance the separation on an Aminex HPX-87K column. By complexing with boric acid, the carbohydrates become negatively charged, thus elute faster from the column by means of ion exlusion and are separated because the complexation capacity with boric acid differs from one carbohydrate to another. Excellent separation between ribose, ribulose and arabinose was achieved with concentrations between 0.1 and 10 gL(-1) of discrete sugar.
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