Fast Determination of Phenolic Compounds in Rice Grains by Ultraperformance Liquid Chromatography Coupled to Photodiode Array Detection: Method Development and Validation

Abstract

There are several phenolic compounds in rice grains providing benefits for human health. The concentration of phenolic compounds in rice is strongly affected by the polishing steps during rice production. A new sensitive ultraperformance liquid chromatography−ultraviolet−visible spectroscopy method with a photodiode array detection protocol has been developed and validated for the quantitation of phenolic compounds in rice grains. Several working variables and two different columns were evaluated. Finally, a less than 3 min analysis time was developed to achieve enough resolution for the simultaneous determination of the 20 most common phenolic compounds in rice. The analytical properties for the separation method produced an adequate sensitivity for all phenolic compounds in the regular range for phenolics in rice, 0.5−100 mg L−1 (R2 > 0.997), with high precisions for both repeatability and intermediate precisions (coefficients of variation less than 0.4 and 2.5% for the retention time and area of the peaks, respectively).