Analysis of triacylglyceride hydroperoxides in vegetable oils by nonaqueous reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography with ultraviolet detection

Triacylglyceride hydroperoxides (HPO-TAG), the primary autoxidation products of triacylglycerides (TAG), have been analyzed in polyunsaturated vegetable oils by means of nonaqueous reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) with ultraviolet detection. Using a retention time model based on equivalent carbon numbers, mono- and bishydroperoxy TAG and hydroxy TAG could be identified. The correlation between the peroxide value (POV) determined by iodometric titration and quantitative HPLC results for HPO-TAG was established for sunflower oil samples with POV between 0.5 and 50 meq/kg. The recovery of HPO-TAG in the HPLC procedure was found to be close to 100% in the POV range of 4 to 71 meq/kg. Absolute quantitative results for HPO-TAG in sunflower oil samples could not be obtained accurately, as molar extinction coefficients of HPO-TAG occurring in natural oils deviate from those of available HPO-TAG reference compounds.