Article ID Journal Published Year Pages File Type
5133787 Food Chemistry 2017 6 Pages PDF
Abstract

•Comparison between UV-vis and HPLC-DAD method for safranal determination.•Overestimation in the safranal determination by UV-vis.•Interference of cis-crocetin esters and other compounds in the UV-vis measure.•No relationship between ISO quality categories and safranal content by HPLC-DAD.

The aim of this work was a comparison of the ISO 3632 (2011) method and an HPLC-DAD method for safranal quantity determination in saffron. Samples from different origins were analysed by UV-vis according to ISO 3632 (2011) and by HPLC-DAD. Both methods were compared, and there was no correlation between the safranal content obtained by UV-vis and HPLC-DAD. An over-estimation in the UV-vis experiment was observed, which was related to the cis-crocetin esters content, as well as other compounds. The results demonstrated that there was no relationship between ISO quality categories and safranal content using HPLC-DAD. Therefore, HPLC-DAD might be preferable to UV-vis for determining the safranal content and the classification of saffron for commercial purposes. In addition, HPLC-DAD was adequate for determining the three foremost parameters that define the quality of saffron (crocetin esters, picrocrocin and safranal); therefore, this approach could be included in the ISO 3632 method (2011).

Related Topics
Physical Sciences and Engineering Chemistry Analytical Chemistry
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