Rapid Method for the Simultaneous Determination of Flavonol Aglycones in Food Using u-HPLC Coupled with Heating Block Acidic Hydrolysis

A rapid method for the simultaneous determination of flavonol aglycones in food using ultra-high-performance LC (u-HPLC) coupled with a heating-block acidic hydrolysis method was validated in terms of precision, accuracy, and linearity. The u-HPLC separation was performed on an RP C18 column (particle size 2 micro m id, 2 mm, length 100 mm) with a photodiode array detector. The LOD and LOQ of the u-HPLC analyses were 0.15 and 0.47 mg/kg for myricetin, 0.09 and 0.28 mg/kg for quercetin, 0.16 and 0.49 mg/kg for kaempferol, and 0.08 and 0.25 mg/kg for isorhamnetin. The intraday and interday precisions of the individual flavonol aglycones were less than 9.31%. All calibration curves exhibited good linearity (r2 = 0.99) within the tested ranges. Total run time of u-HPLC was 13 min. The rapid u-HPLC method presented herein significantly improved the speed, sensitivity, and resolution of the analyses of myricetin, quercetin, kaempferol, and isorhamnetin in food.