Determination of riboflavin in urine and beverages by capillary electrophoresis with in-column optical fiber laser-induced fluorescence detection

A simple, rapid and sensitive method was developed for routine analysis of riboflavin in beverage, green tea and urine by capillary electrophoresis with in-column optical fiber laser-induced fluorescence detection (LIF). The difference between the present detector in the study and others is that an optical fiber was adopted in the former, which can guide the excitation light into the capillary right at the detection window. The linearity of the method (r2 = 0.998) was good over the concentration range from 0.05 to 20 μM for riboflavin. The limit of detection (LOD) was determined using linear regression analysis and was found to be 3.0 nM. The percent recoveries of riboflavin in beverage, green tea and urine samples were 95.3 ± 2.9, 105.5 ± 3.9 and 94.3 ± 1.7, respectively. These results of quantitative analysis of riboflavin in beverage and green tea samples is in agreement with that of obtained by the AOAC of fluorometric method. In the analysis of urine samples, all electropherograms of urine samples and corresponding concentrations of riboflavin in the period of 13 h after orally administrating the ingestion of vitamin B2 tablets were illustrated.