Determination of melatonin in wine and plant extracts by capillary electrochromatography with immobilized carboxylic multi-walled carbon nanotubes as stationary phase

PATRICIA W. STEGE; LORENA L. SOMBRA; GERMÁN A. MESSINA; LUIS D. MARTINEZ; MARÍA F. SILVA

ELECTROPHORESIS

WILEY-V C H VERLAG GMBH

Año: 2010 vol. 31 p. 2242 - 2248

0173-0835

The finding of melatonin, the often called ‘hormone of darkness’ in plants opens aninteresting perspective associated to the plethora of health benefits related to the moderateconsumption of red wine. In the present work, the implementation of a new methodfor the determination of melatonin in complex food matrices by CEC with immobilizedcarboxylic multi-walled carbon nanotubes (c-MWNT) as stationary phase is demonstrated.The results indicated high electrochromatographic resolution, good capillaryefficiencies and improved sensitivity respect to those obtained with conventional capillaries.In addition, it was demonstrated highly reproducible results between runs, daysand columns. The detection limit for melatonin was 0.01 ng mL-1. The method was successfullyapplied to the determination of MT in red and white wine, grape skin and plantextracts of Salvia officinalis L.