Determination of soluble sugar profile in rice

•A method for analysis of soluble sugar profile in rice by using IC-PAD was presented.•Soluble glucose, fructose, sucrose, raffinose and maltose in rice were determined.•High performance was obtained for the method. Soluble sugars in rice are the main components affecting sweetness taste of rice. In this paper, an accurate, precise and rapid method for simultaneous determination of multi soluble sugars in rice by using ion chromatography equipped with pulsed amperometric detector was presented. Pretreatment and parameters of ion chromatography and pulsed amperometric detector were optimized. Regression coefficients (R) of 0.9998, 1.0000, 0.9979, 0.9998 and 0.9998 were obtained for glucose, fructose, sucrose, raffinose and maltose, respectively. The recovery ranges of five sugars were 92.9–112.0% for milled rice matrix. Repeatability and reproducibility of the method were 0.8–9.7% and 1.9–7.6%, respectively. Method LODs of 3.1–34.6μgg−1 were obtained for soluble sugars in milled rice matrix.