Separation and quantitative determination of the radiolysis products of d-fructose as their O-benzyloximes

High-performance liquid chromatography of O-benzyloxime derivatives is shown to be suitable for the analysis of carbohydrates as well as for the detection of glucosone (the major product of fructose irradiated in the presence of oxygen), but the method is not ideally suited to the determination of minor radiolysis products. Gas-liquid chromatography (GLC) of the silylated O-benzyloximes gives excellent separation of the various radiolysis products. These compounds are also suitable for determination GLC-mass spectrometry owing to their characteristic fragmentation patterns. The good separation obtained with these derivatives, as well as the possibility of removing most of the unchanged starting material with no disturbance of product composition, makes this method a viable alternative to previously employed methods for the analysis of irradiated sugar solutions.