Chromatography Forum

Dear all,

maybe somebody of you have experience with carbohydrate analysis on GC. There is a need to analyse monosacharides and disacharides. What I do know is that there are two ways of derivatisation prior GC - silylation or acetylation.

Maybe somebody could guide me in this application with some tips. like what would be the best derivatisation and what columns then to use?

Sweeley reagent is commonly used to derivitize sugars. (pyridine-HMDS-TCMS). Available as Sigma Sil A from Sigma-Aldrich, my company. Check out the S/A web site for more information on silylation reagents.

OV-17 (50% Phenyl Methyl silicone) packed or capillary is the most commonly used phase to separate sugars.

If you use acetates then a more polar column like SP-2330 is used.

The web is full of resources. Start with my company WWW.SIAL.COM.

Plus our technical service is FREE.

best wishes,

Rodney George
Senior Research and Development Scientist
Gas Separations Research
Supelco
595 North Harrison Road
Bellefonte, PA 16823

814-359-5737 voice
814-359-5459 fax
rodney.george@sial.com

25 years ago we made acetate esters. Now we derivatize with BSTFA for quantitation as well as GCMS identifications.

You can not run disacharides if you use acetate derivatives.

I used HMDS but today I prefer BSTFA. beyond to derivatization problem there is the anomerization problem (multiple peaks for same sugar).
If you use a capilar column you have to do some previous reaction to avoid the multiple peaks.

maybe this help:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.foodchem.2004.05.002

Fabiano

Thankyou all for advices, the method needs to be started soon, maybe there will appear some more questions:)

Thankyou all for advices, the method needs to be started soon, maybe there will appear some more questions:)