Fast, simple and efficient salting-out assisted liquid-liquid extraction of naringenin from fruit juice samples prior to their enantioselective determination by liquid chromatography.

In this study, an easy, simple and efficient method for the determination of naringenin enantiomers in fruit juices after salting-out-assisted liquid-liquid extraction (SALLE) and high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) with diode-array detection (DAD) was developed. The sample treatment is based on the use of water-miscible acetonitrile as the extractant and acetonitrile phase separation under high-salt conditions. After extraction, juice samples were incubated with hydrochloric acid in order to achieve hydrolysis of naringin to naringenin. The hydrolysis parameters were optimized by using a half-fraction factorial central composite design (CCD). After sample preparation, chromatographic separation was obtained on a Chiralcel® OJ-RH column using the mobile phase consisting of 10mM aqueous ammonium acetate:methanol:acetonitrile (50:30:20; v/v/v) with detection at 288nm. The average recovery of the analyzed compounds ranged from 85.6 to 97.1%. The proposed method was satisfactorily used for the determination of naringenin enantiomers in various fruit juices samples.