Enantioresolution and quantification of monosaccharides by comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatography

This work presents the development of a simple and efficient analytical protocol for the direct enantioselective resolution of sugars. A racemic mixture of the C3 sugar d,l-glyceraldehyde and the C5 monosaccharides d,l-arabinose, d,l-ribose, d,l-xylose, and d,l-lyxose was subjected to derivatization with trifluoroacetic anhydride, and corresponding derivatives were separated on a β-cyclodextrin column with excellent resolution factors. Even though each aldopentose shows beside the linear form four predominant cyclic hemiacetals being the α- and β-furanose along with the α- and β-pyranose, we show that the overall enantiomeric excess of each compound can be precisely determined. Moreover, the measured detection limit for derivatized aldopentoses ranges from 0.015 to 0.019pmol on the column, while the quantification limit varies from 0.5 to 0.64pmol on the column.