Abstract: A method for the simultaneous determination of 5 organic acids (L-malic acid, maleic acid, succinic acid, citric acid, D-malic acid) in honey was developed by solid-phase extraction and high performance liquid chromatography (SPE-HPLC). The sample was purified by a Bond Elutes SAX SPE cartridge after pretreatment, then separated using a reversed-phase C18-MS-IIcolumn. A 2% metaphosphoric acid solution was used as the mobile phase at a flow rate of 0.7 mL/min. The detection was performed by a diode array detector at 210 nm. Under these conditions, the linear ranges of the method for L-malic acid was 5.0~500 mg/L, for maleic acid was 0.1~500 mg/L, and for succinic acid, citric acid, D-malic acid were 18.0~500 mg/L. The correlation coefficients of 5 organic acids were more than 0.9967. The average recoveries of 5 organic acids were 86.0%~103.9% with the relative standard deviations of 5.7%~9.8% (n=6). The detection limits ranged from 0.06 to 9.4 mg/kg. The method can be used for determining organic acids in honey samples.

Key words: honey, organic acids, reversed-phase high performance liquid chromatography (RP-HPLC), solid-phase extraction (SPE)