Determination of melatonin in wine and plant extracts by capillary electrochroma-tography with immobilized carboxylic multi-walled carbon nanotubes as station-ary phase

STEGE, PATRICIA W.; SOMBRA, LORENA L.; MESSINA, GERMÁN A.; MARTINEZ, LUIS DANTE; SILVA, MARÍA FERNANDA

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 an interesting perspective associated to the plethora of health benefits related to the moderate consumption of red wine. In the present work, the implementation of a new method for the determination of melatonin in complex food matrices by CEC with immobilized carboxylic multi-walled carbon nanotubes (c-MWNT) as stationary phase is demonstrated. The results indicated high electrochromatographic resolution, good capillary efficiencies and improved sensitivity respect to those obtained with conventional capillaries. In addition, it was demonstrated highly reproducible results between runs, days and columns. The detection limit for melatonin was 0.01 ng mL-1. The method was successfully applied to the determination of melatonin in red and white wine, grape skin and plant extracts of Salvia officinalis L.