Rapid method for determination of β-carotene in foods using ultra high performance liquid chromatography

The ultra high performance liquid chromatography (u-HPLC) method for determination of β-carotene in foods was validated in terms of precision, accuracy, and linearity. The u-HPLC separation was performed on a reversed column C 18 (particle size 2 μm, i.d. 2 mm, length 50 mm), followed by ultra violet (UV) detection at 450 nm. The recovery of β-carotene was more than 84.4% and the limit of detection and limit of quantitation of u-HPLC analysis were 0.28 and 0.85 μg/mL for β-carotene with butylated hydroxytoluene (BHT) and 0.62 and 1.89 μg/mL for β-carotene without BHT, respectively. The calibration graph for β-carotene was linear from 0.1 to 25.0 μg/mL for u-HPLC. The intra- and interday precisions (relative standard deviations) were