Flow system for optical activity detection of vegetable extracts employing molecular exclusion continuous chromatographic detection

The combination of molecular exclusion chromatography and laser polarimetric detection has turned into a carbohydrate separation and quantification system for plant fluids of industrial value, making it possible the evaluation of the quality of sugarcane juices, agave juices and many other plant extracts. Some previous papers described a system where liquid chromatography separation and polarimetric detection using a LASERPOL 101M polarimeter with He-Ne light source allowed the collection and quantification of discrete samples for analytical purposes. In this paper, the authors are introducing a new improved system which accomplishes polarimetric measurements in a continuous flux. Chromatograms of several carbohydrates standard solutions were obtained as useful references to study juice quality of several sugarcane varieties under different physiological conditions. Results by either discrete or continuous flux systems were compared in order to test the validation of the new system. An application of the system to the diagnostics of scalded foliar is described. A computer program allowing the output of the chromatograms to a display on line and the possibility of digital storing, maxima detections, zone integration, and some other possibilities make this system very competitive and self-convincing.