Simultaneous determination of twenty-five polyphenols in multifloral and cactus honeys using solid-phase extraction and high-performance liquid chromatography with photodiode array detection

Abstract

Simple and accurate high-performance liquid chromatography–photodiode array detection method has been proposed for simultaneous separation and determination of 25 polyphenol compounds, including 10 phenolic acids, nine flavonoids, and six other phenols in 17 varieties of multifloral and cactus honey of Yemen. Multiwalled carbon nanotubes were used as solid-phase adsorbent for extraction of the polyphenols from honey samples. The total amount of phenolic acids, flavonoids, and other phenols from all 17 analyzed honeys were found in the range of 328–3448, 122–5482, and 2.4–677.6 µg/100 g of honey, respectively. The 4-hydroxybenzoic acid was found in major quantity (10.642 mg/100 g honey) among all analyzed honeys, while chrysin (5.029 mg/100 g honey) was found to be the main detected flavonoid and cinnamic acid the main other phenolic compound (2.330 mg/100 g honey). Among 25 analyzed compounds, 24 were detected (except luteolin) and determined quantitatively in honey samples. The regeneration of solid-phase adsorbent and recovery results showed potential usefulness of the proposed method for the routine analysis of polyphenols in honey extracts.