Reduction of quinones with zinc metal in the presence of zinc ions: application of post-column reactor for the fluorometric detection of vitamin K compounds.

A simple and effective chemical method has been developed for quantitatively reducing quinones, which is based on their reaction with zinc metal and zinc ions. Comparison of this method with conventional electrochemical reduction revealed the chemical method to be considerably superior. The reduction of quinones to their corresponding hydroquinones was verified by ultraviolet spectrophotometry. The reduction methodology has been applied to derivatize phylloquinone and its metabolite, namely phylloquinone 2,3-epoxide, 'on-line', with subsequent fluorometric detection of the generated hydroquinones.