Quantitative determination of reducing sugars and raffinose in white beet sugar and beet molasses by fully automated capillary gas chromatography

A fully automated method is described for the quantitative determination of reducing sugars and raffinose in beet white sugar and beet molasses. The samples are prepared in a PrepStation coupled to a gas chromatograph equipped with an apolar capillary column and a flame ionization detector. Sample preparation and analysis run in time, providing high productivity. The sensitivity of the method for glucose and fructose in white beet sugar is in the order of 10 mg/kg. The reproducibility of the determinations is excellent and RSD values smaller than 5% are obtained. The same procedure can be applied to quantify glucose, fructose and raffinose in beet molasses