OPTIMIZATION OF A HPLC ANALYSIS METHOD FOR TAURINE AND CAFFEINE IN ENERGY DRINKS
RALUCA-IOANA [CHIRITA] TAMPU 1, 2*, ADRIANA FINARU 1, CLAIRE ELFAKIR 2 1. " Vasile Alecsandri” University of Bacau, Calea Marasesti, 157, Bacau-600115, Romania
2. Institut de Chimie Organique et Analytique CNRS FR 2708 UMR 6005, University of Orléans, F-45067 Orléans, France
*Corresponding author: tampu.raluca@ub.ro
This paper presents the optimization of a rapid, inexpensive, reliable and selective isocratic high performance liquid chromatographic (HPLC) method for the simultaneous determination of caffeine and taurine in energy drinks with two common detectors in series: evaporating light scattering detector (ELSD) and an ultraviolet (UV) detector. Satisfactory analysis results were obtained on an Astec apHera NH2 column using methanol/water (30:70 v/v) as mobile phase. The optimized method was used for the analysis of commercial energy drinks containing large amounts of carbohydrates (100 g·L-1) and considerably lower amounts of taurine and caffeine (4 and 0.6 g·L-1, respectively). The advantages of this method consist of its lack of preliminary samples treatment and also the fact that basic LC instrumentation was employed.
