Simultaneous determination of alpha-tocopherol and beta-carotene in olive oil by reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography.

A reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatographic method was developed for the determination, in one run, of alpha-tocopherol and beta-carotene in virgin olive oil. The method involved a rapid saponification and a later extraction with a mixture of hexane-ethyl acetate. The chromatographic system consists of an ODS-2 column with a mobile phase of methanol-water-butanol and a diode-array detector. Linearity, precision, recovery and sensitivity were satisfactory. The main advantage of the proposed method is the speed and simultaneous determination of both compounds at the same time.