Simultaneous GC-MS quantitation of o-phosphoric, aliphatic and aromatic carboxylic acids, proline, hydroxymethylfurfurol and sugars as their TMS derivatives: In honeys

A GC-MS procedure is described for the simultaneous quantitatation of the minor and major constituents of honeys, as their trimethylsilyl derivatives, from one solution, by one injection. Selected minor components (aliphatic and aromatic carboxylic acids, members of various homologous series, together with o-phosphoric acid, proline and hydroxymethylfurfurol), have been determined on the basis of their characteristic fragment ions, in the presence of extremely high excess of honeysaccharides. Selective fragmentation of these minor compounds in the ion trap detector provided possibilities for distinguishing them. The method permitted the simultaneous quantitation of o-phosphoric, malic, shikimic, citric/isocitric, quinic, margaric, oleic and stearic acids, hydroxymethylfurfurol and proline with the extremely high sugar contents of honeys (fructose, glucose, galacturonic acid, inositol, sucrose, trehalose, turanose, maltose, gentiobiose, isomaltose, raffinose, erlose, melezitose, maltotriose, panose, isomaltotriose) and allowed the fast evaluation of sugar and acid constituents of fifteen honeys from various floral and geological origin. Results revealed that (i) the minor components varied in the concentration range of 0.0001 to 0.43%, and, (ii) together with the saccharides of honeys made up the total of identified and determined constituents from 87.8% to 98.5%. Quantitative evaluation of the minor constituents was performed on the basis of their selective fragment ion values with an average reproducibility of 6.7% (RSD).