A One-Step Method for the Simultaneous Determination of Five Wood Monosaccharides and the Corresponding Aldonic Acids in Fermentation Broth Using High-Performance Anion-Exchange Chromatography Coupled with a Pulsed Amperometric Detector

Abstract

Interest in biomass biorefineries and especially their aldonic acid products has been growing in recent years. However, the analytical methods for aldonic acids have only rarely been explored. In this study, a simple one-step method was developed using high-performance anion-exchange chromatography coupled with pulsed amperometric detection (HPAEC-PAD). With this method, five wood monosaccharides and their corresponding aldonic acids, including arabinose, galactose, glucose, xylose, mannose, arabonic acid, galactonic acid, gluconic acid, xylonic acid, and mannonic acid, were simultaneously separated and quantitatively determined. The separation was performed on a CarboPacTM PA-10 column (250 mm × 2 mm) with a gradient elution using NaOH solution as the mobile phase. The calibration curves showed good linearity (R2 ≥ 0.9993) for the five monosaccharides and the corresponding aldonic acids in the range of 0.1 to 10.0 mg/L. The spiked recoveries of the 10 components ranged from 93.92% to 104.15%, with relative standard deviations (RSDs) (n = 3) of 0.49% to 3.95%. The established method was applied successfully to determine the quantitative variation of monosaccharide and aldonic acid contents in products from a biomass biorefinery.