SPECTROPHOTOMETRIC DETERMINATION OF CHLOROPHYLLS AND CAROTENOIDS: AN EFFECT OF SONICATION AND SAMPLE PROCESSING

Abstract

Chlorophylls and carotenoids are abundant pigments in plants, algae and cyanobacteria. In this study we verified the applicability of two previously developed UV-vis spectrophotometric methods for simultaneous quantitative determination of chlorophylls (a, b) and carotenoids (lycopene, β-carotene or total carotenoids). The pigments were extracted from the strawberries, apricots and raspberries in both the acetone-water and acetone-hexane mixtures. Based on the statistical evaluation of the results the combination of mechanical disruption and sonication of fruit samples seems to be a suitable way to improve the pigment extraction efficiency from fruits in both types of solvents. In the case of apricot and raspberry fruit extracts the amount of chlorophylls and carotenoids calculated from the proposed equations was comparable to those published by other authors. However, the spectrophotometric determination of β-carotene content in strawberry acetone-hexane extract appeared to be problematic mainly due to the fact that carotenoids exhibited overlapping chlorophyll absorption bands. Overlap of bands leads to the negative values calculated from the proposed equation for the β-carotene content. The results indicate the limitations in use of the proposed set of equations for plant samples with comparable amounts of studied pigments.