Development and Validation of an HPLC-UV Method for Determination of Eight Phenolic Compounds in Date Palms

Abstract

A simple, precise, accurate, and selective method was developed and validated for determination of eight phenolic compounds (gallic acid, p-hydroxybenzoic acid, vanilic acid, caffeic acid, syringic acid, p-coumaric acid, ferulic acid, and sinapic acid) in date palms. Separation was achieved on an RP C18 column using the mobile phase methanol–water with 2% acetic acid (18 + 82, v/v). This method was validated according to the requirements for new methods, which include accuracy, precision, selectivity, robustness, LOD, LOQ, linearity, and range. The method demonstrated good linearity over the range 1–1000 ppm of gallic acid, p-hydroxybenzoic acid, vanilic acid, caffeic acid, and syringic acid with r2 greater than 0.99, and in the range of 3–1000 ppm for p–coumaric acid, ferulic acid, and sinapic acid with r2 greater than 0.99. The recovery of the eight phenolic compounds ranged from 97.1 to 102.2%. The method is selective because adjacent peaks of phenolic compounds were well separated with good resolution. The degree of reproducibility of the results obtained as a result of small deliberate variations in the method parameters and by changing analytical operators proved that the method is robust and rugged.