Alkaline stability of the oligosaccharides present in beet medium invert sugar

The stability of the components of beet medium invert sugar, d-glucose, d-fructose, sucrose, and oligosaccharides, in the eluent used for anion-exchange high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) analysis with pulsed amperometric detection has been determined. The monosaccharides undergo degradation when stored in 100 mm sodium hydroxide but the degradation products produced elute before the beet medium invert sugar fingerprint oligosaccharides. Sucrose and the fingerprint beet medium invert sugar oligosaccharides do not produce detectable degradation products when stored under similar conditions. The presence of sodium acetate, the eluting salt in the HPLC method, does not alter the degradation product spectrum. The fingerprint peaks in the oligosaccharide region, are components of beet medium invert sugar and not artefacts of the anion-exchange HPLC method; they are stable under the HPLC analysis conditions used.