Effect of oximation reagents on gas chromatographic separation of eight different kinds of mono- and di-saccharides

• Type of oximation reagent strongly affected sugar analysis by GC-FID method. • Xylose and arabinose were completely separated using O-ethylhydroxylamine. • Common sugars found in nature were simultaneously separated and quantified. • This method is applicable to analyze sugar composition of various food matrices. The objective of this study was to investigate the effect of oximation reagents in simultaneous analysis of mono and di-saccharides using gas chromatography. Sugar oximation with O-ethylhydroxylamine separated all the mono- and di-saccharides while hydroxylamine and O-benzylhydroxylamine could make most of the saccharides separable except for xylose and arabinose. Resolution of xylose: arabinose, galactose: glucose, and fructose: galactose oximated by O-ethylhydroxylamine in DB-1ms column were 1.66, 2.15, and 6.19, respectively, which were above 1.5 and were officially acceptable for quantitative analysis according to the AOAC guideline. The applied method was then verified by the method validation parameters; LOD (0.011–0.02 mg/100 g), LOQ (0.032–0.061 mg/100 g), linearity (R 2 = 0.9991–1.0000) and precision (repeatability RSD: 1.4–3.3%, reproducibility RSD: 1.7–7.6%). The greatest amounts of xylose (19.03 ± 0.38 mg/100 g), maltose (6,274.48 ± 173.59 mg/100 g) were found in the oyster sauce, and the contents of glucose (10,565.00 ± 125.31 mg/100 g), galactose (170.40 ± 4.62 mg/100 g) were greatest in soybean paste.