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

Lugar: Weinheim; 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 themoderate consumption of red wine. In this study, the implementation of a new methodfor the determination of melatonin in complex food matrices by CEC with immobilizedcarboxylic multi-walled carbon nanotubes as stationary phase is demonstrated. Theresults indicated high electrochromatographic resolution, good capillary efficiencies andimproved sensitivity respect to those obtained with conventional capillaries. In addition,it was demonstrated highly reproducible results between runs, days and columns. TheLOD for melatonin was 0.01 ng/mL. The method was successfully applied to thedetermination of melatonin in red and white wine, grape skin and plant extracts of Salvia