Ethyl Acetate-Propionic Acid as Green Mobile Phase System for Selective Densitometric Identification of Maltose with Preliminary Separation on Silica High-Performance Thin-Layer Chromatographic Plates

A mobile phase system comprising of ethyl acetate and propionic acid in 1:1 (v/v) ratio was identified as the most suitable green mobile phase for selective separation of maltose from fructose, dextrose, galactose, or mannose on precoated silica gel 60 HPTLC plates. The effect of presence of inorganic cations as impurities in the sample was examined for the separation of sugars. The chromatographic parameters like Delta R-F, separation factor (alpha), and resolution (Rs) of separated components of the mixture of maltose-fructose, maltose-dextrose, maltose-galactose, and maltose-mannose were calculated. The limits of detection for fructose, dextrose, and mannose were 7.5 +/- 0.41 mu g spot(-1) and for maltose and galactose were 1.5 +/- 0.09 mu g spot(-1). The proposed method is rapid, sensitive, and free from the use of toxic organic solvents and is therefore environmentally safe. Maltose has been selectively identified in the presence of fructose, dextrose, galactose, and mannose using scanning densitometry.