Quantification of sugars in wheat flours with an HPAEC-PAD method

An HPAEC-PAD method has been developed and validated for the simultaneous determination and quantification of six sugars (glucose, isomaltose, maltose, maltotriose, maltotetraose and maltopentaose) in wheat flours, by extraction with water and precipitation of proteins with Carrez II. Analyses were carried out on a Hamilton RCX-30 column with a gradient elution of NaOH 50 mM (A) and NaOH 50 mM + NaAcO 500 mM (B). Total run time was 38 min. Detector conditions were as follows: E1, +100 mV; E2, +550 mV; E3, −100 mV. The method was validated, with LODs ranging between 0.03–0.21 mg L−1 and LOQs between 0.10–0.71 mg L−1, R2 between 0.9941 and 0.9983; recoveries were from 74.16% to 110.86% and RSDs for intraday repeatability, interday repeatability and reproducibility between 0.35–8.34%, 2.34–6.64% and 1.90–5.68%, respectively. The method was successfully applied to quantification of these sugars in wheat flours.