An efficient isocratic separation of hydroxycinnamates and their corresponding benzoates from microbial and plant sources by HPLC

A rapid HPLC-based separation method was developed to analyse phenolic flavour components. In the present study, ferulic acid, 4-coumaric acid, 4-hydroxybenzoic acid, 4-hydroxybenzaldehyde, vanillic acid and vanillin were chromatographed on various C18 columns (Prodigy^TM ODS2, Synergi^TM Hydro-RP, Lichrosorb and Columbus^TM). A dual-wavelength UV detector was used for the precise identification of the eluted components. An isocratic elution with aqueous trifluoroacetic acid (1 mM)/methanol (17:8) at a flow rate of 1.0 ml/min separated all the above six phenolic compounds within 21 min on a C18 reverse-phase column (Synergi^TM Hydro-RP) with stable baseline resolution.