• Korean Journal of Food Science and Technology
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• v.46 no.3
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• pp.276-282
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• 2014

An accurate and sensitive analytical method was established for the simultaneous determination of synephrine and n-methyltyramine contents by ultra-performance liquid chromatography (UPLC) with a fluorescence detector (FLD). A 70:30 (v/v) mixture of 10 mM sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) and acetonitrile was used as the mobile phase. The coefficient of correlation ($r^2$) was 0.9999 for both synephrine and n-methyltyramine, and their limits of detection (LOD) were 0.02 and 0.01 mg/kg, respectively. The percentage recoveries for synephrine and n-methyltyramine were 96.4% and 100.9%, respectively, from bitter orange (Citrus aurantium) samples. The synephrine and n-methyltyramine contents were 38.07-118.21 mg/kg and 0.27-0.56 mg/kg, respectively, in the orange fruit samples, while they were 14.61-120.39 mg/kg and up to 3.34 mg/kg, respectively, in the tested commercial orange juice samples. The differences in synephrine and n-methyltyramine content between orange fruit and commercial orange juice were not significant (p<0.05). These results suggest that UPLC-FLD can be applied to develop an analytical method of quality control for commercial orange juice.