Rapid determination by reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography of Vitamins A and E in infant formulas

A rapid, sensitive method has been developed for the simultaneous determination of retinol acetate, δ-, γ-, α-tocopherol and α-tocopherol acetate. We compare two experimental procedures for simultaneous direct solvent extraction of these vitamins without previous saponification. Method I: the fat milk sample was extracted with ethanol-hexane and injected directly into the chromatographic column. Method II: the power milk sample was extracted with ethanol-hexane and also injected directly into the column. Under optimum conditions the limits of detection for retinol acetate, δ-, γ-, α-tocopherol and α-tocopherol acetate were 0.33, 21.2, 32.9, 32.5 and 3.2 ng and the limits of quantification were 0.42, 25.3, 37.9, 36.8 and 6.3 ng, respectively. The precision results showed that the relative standard deviations of repeatability and reproducibility were between 0.74 and 5.7%.