Determination of aloesin and aloeresin A for the detection of aloe in beverages.

ABSTRACT

This work describes a sensitive high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) method for the quantification of aloesin and aloeresin A in alcoholic beverages containing aloe as a flavoring agent. The compounds were prepared from Aloe ferox juice. Sephadex LH20 and ion-exchange resin AG1X2 column chromatography were used for aloesin. Aloeresin A was obtained by Sephadex LH20 and silica gel column chromatography followed by purification on Discovery DSC-18 solid-phase extraction tubes. A 98 mg amount of aloesin (>99% purity) and 34 mg of aloeresin A (>98% purity) were recovered from 2.5 g of aloe juice. The HPLC method was validated, and intra- and interday performances were established. In-house validation was carried out by analyzing samples of beverages with and without aloe as a flavoring agent.