Separation of α-tocopherol and its oxidation products by high performance liquid chromatography

A very sensitive high performance liquid chromatographic (HPLC) method was developed for the separation of α-tocopherol (α-T) and its five oxidation products: α-tocopheryl quinone (TQ), dimer (D), dihydroxy dimer (DHD), trimer (T) and 9-methoxy-α-tocopherone commonly called α-tocopheroxide (TO). The separation was achieved on a normal-phase silica-based column (Ultrasphere-Si), using a mobile phase of hexane/chloroform/isopropanol (95∶4.5∶0.5, v/v/v) at a flow rate of 0.4 ml/min, and the eluants were monitored simultaneously at their maximum absorptions using a variable-wavelength UV detector. The minmum detection limit is 0.01 μg for α-T, TQ and TO, 0.05 μg for DHD and D, and 0.1 μg for T/injection. This normal-phase method has the combined advantages of being very sensitive, fast and capable of separating all six compounds at the same time.