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Quantitation of limonin in Iranian orange juice concentrates using high-performance liquid chromatography and spectrophotometric methods

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Abstract

Bitterness is a major problem in the citrus industry worldwide, and is mostly due to the presence of limonoid compounds, especially limonin. In this study, the limonin content of orange juice concentrates from three active factories in west Mazandaran province, after reconstitution, was assayed using high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) and spectrophotometric methods. With HPLC, employing acetonitrile/water (v/v) (32:68) with a flow rate of 0.9 ml/min at λ=207 nm, the limonin content was in the range 11.7–23.3 μg/ml with a mean ± standard deviation (SD) of 18.5±3.6 μg/ml. Spectrophotometric measurement of limonin at 503 nm with Burnham reagent gave a range of 9.9–21.8 μg/ml with a mean ± SD of 17.16±4.1 μg/ml. The correlation coefficients of the detector linear response for the limonin standard (0–50 μg/ml) for HPLC and spectrophotometry were 0.995 and 0.989, respectively. The percentages of limonin recovery with and without sample addition were 101.02–111.40 and 93.0–100.8, respectively, for HPLC. The percentages of limonin recovery for the spectrophotometric method resulted in 95.6–101.8 for limonin-added samples. The precision factors for the two assay methods were ±2.10% and ±1.69, respectively. The correlation coefficient of the two methods was 0.84. Sensory evaluation of the reconstituted samples from the view point of bitterness confirmed 85% of the results of the analytical methods. This study recommends spectrophotometric analysis as a useful and suitable method for quantitation of limonin in the quality control laboratories of orange juice plants.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Dr. Widmer (Florida Citrus Department) for donations of pure limonin and nomilin standards. We also appreciate the help and cooperation of the managers of the citrus processing companies in west Mazandaran in sampling and sharing their opinions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Food Science & Technology, Faculty of Agriculture, Tarbiat Modarres University, P.O. Box 14115-336, Tehran, Iran

    Soleiman Abbasi

  2. National Nutrition & Food Technology Research Institute (NNFTRI), P.O. Box 19395-4741, Tehran, Iran

    Parvin Zandi & Esmaeil Mirbagheri

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  1. Soleiman Abbasi
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  2. Parvin Zandi
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  3. Esmaeil Mirbagheri
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Correspondence to Soleiman Abbasi.

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Abbasi, S., Zandi, P. & Mirbagheri, E. Quantitation of limonin in Iranian orange juice concentrates using high-performance liquid chromatography and spectrophotometric methods. Eur Food Res Technol 221, 202–207 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00217-005-1136-1

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