Determination of glycerol in foods by high-performance liquid chromatography with fluorescence detection

Abstract A high-performance liquid chromatographic method for the determination of glycerol in foods is described. The method involves the conversion of glycerol into formaldehyde by sequential enzymatic reactions (glycerokinase, glycerol-3-phosphate oxidase, catalase), followed by the derivatization of formaldehyde with 4-amino-3-penten-2-one. The calibration graph was linear in the range. 0.1-4.0 μg/ml of glycerol. Many common ingredients of foods did not interfere. More than 90% of glycerol added at three levels was recovered from several foods. The method is simple and accurate. The detection limit was 1.0 μg/g when 5 g of sample were assayed.