Determination of methylglyoxal in Manuka honey of New Zealand by high performance liquid chromatography

An HPLC method was developed for the determination of methylglyoxal in Manuka honey of New Zealand. The honey sample was dissolved in water and mixed with o-phenylenediamine solution for derivatization. After the reaction for at least 8 h in the dark at room temperature, the solution was filtered with 0.22 microm membrane and injected into an HPLC system for analysis. The separation was carried out on a Kromasil reversed phase column with gradient elution. The mobile phases were methanol and 0. 1% (v/v) acetic acid aqueous solution. The detection wavelength was 318 nm. The external standard method was used for quantitation. The linear range of methylglyoxal was 1-50 mg/L with a correlation coefficient of 0. 999 9. The LOD (S/N = 3) and LOQ (S/N = 10) were 0.02 mg/L and 0.06 mg/L, respectively. The recoveries at the spiked levels of 50, 100, 200 mg/kg were 98.3%-101.5% and the RSDs (n = 5) were less than 5%. The derivative of methylglyoxal was stable within 24 h. The results showed that the pretreatment of this method is simple and the sensitivity, the recovery and repeatability are good. This method can be used for the quality control of Manuka honey of New Zealand, and also for the detection of methylglyoxal in Chinese honey.