Separation of phenolic compounds by high-performance liquid chromatography with absorbance and fluorimetric detection

Phenolic compounds including phenolic aldehydes, acids and flavonoids are separated by high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) with analysis time shorter than described in the literature. The use of a fluorescence detector in series with absorbance detector allowed increasing selectivity and sensitivity for the determination of catechin, vanillic acid, syringic acid, epicatechin and trans-resveratrol in wine samples. An optimised sample preparation method using liquid–liquid extraction with diethyl ether at pH 2.0 was used. The optimised method was applied to analyse wine samples with good results.