Determination of Glyoxal, Methylglyoxal, Diacethyl, and 2, 3-Pentanedione in Fermented Foods by High-Performance Liquid Chromatography with Fluorescence Detection

A highly sensitive and rapid high-performance liquid chromatographic method for the determination of glyoxal, methylglyoxaJ. diacethyl, and 2, 3-pentanedione in fermented foods is described. After extraction of the compounds with methanol, the compounds in the extract are converted into the corresponding fluorescent derivatives by reaction with 1.2-diamino-4.5-methylenedioxybenzene. a fluorogenic reagent for α-dicarbonyl compounds. The derivatives are separated on a reversed-phase column (L-column ODS) with isocratic elution using acetonitrile −0.5M ammonium acetate, and are detected fluorimetrically. The detection limits are 11.6-13.8 fmol per 10-μl injection for all the compounds at a signal to noise ratio of 3.