High performance liquid chromatographic determination of nine phenolic antioxidants in oils, lards, and shortenings.

A simple, rapid technique is described for the determination of 2- and 3-tert-butyl-4-hydroxyanisole (BHA), tert-butylhydroquinone (TBHQ), 3,5-di-tert-butyl-4-hydroxytoluene (BHT), 2,6-di-tert-butyl-4-hydroxymethylphenol (Ionox-100), 2,4,5-trihydroxybutyrophenone (THBP), propyl gallate (PG), octyl gallate (OG), dodecyl gallate (DG), and nordihydroguaiaretic acid (NDGA) in vegetable oils, lards, and shortenings. The antioxidants are partitioned from hexane-oil into acetonitrile, concentrated under vacuum, and determined by reverse phase, gradient elution, high performance liquid chromatography with detection at 280 nm. The mobile phase is water-acetonitrile with 5% acetic acid. With this system, only Ionox-100 and OG are not resolved. Recoveries from soya-sunflower seed oil spiked at 16 and 100 ppm and from lard at 32 ppm for 8 of the 9 antioxidants ranged from 96 to 103%, 100 to 102%, and 98 to 102%, respectively. The recoveries of BHT, due to incomplete extraction, were 84, 85, and 87%, respectively.