Sensitive determination of phenolic compounds using high-performance liquid chromatography with cerium(IV)-rhodamine 6G-phenolic compound chemiluminescence detection

A simple, selective and sensitive determination method of 20 phenolic compounds has been developed using high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) with chemiluminescence detection. The method is based on the chemiluminescent enhancement by phenolic compound of the cerium(IV)-rhodamine 6G system in sulfuric acid medium. Twenty phenolic compounds were separated on a XDB-C8 column with a gradient elution using a mixture of methanol and 1.0% acetic acid as a mobile phase. Under the optimized conditions, a linear working range extends 2 orders of magnitude with the relative standard deviations of intra- and inter-day precision below 4.0%, and the detection limits (S/N = 3) were in the range of 1.5–82.1 ng/ml. The chemiluminescence reaction was compatible with the mobile phase of high-performance liquid chromatography. The proposed method has been successfully applied to the assay of phenolic compounds in red wine without any pretreatment.