The Determination of Canthaxanthin in Feed Ingredients by High Performance Liquid Chromatography

A series of studies were conducted to establish a methodology for the accurate and efficient determination of canthaxanthin in feed ingredients. Agilent ZORBAX Eclipse DB-C18 analytical column (4.6×150 mm, 5 μm) was used and kept at 25 ℃.The mobile phase was acetonitrile : methanol (v/v)=95 : 5, and eluted compounds were detected by DAD absorbance (470 nm). The flow rate was maintained at 1.0 mL·min-1. The response of the method was linear over the range 1.0-20.0 μg·mL1 canthaxanthin assay solution (R2=0.9998). Recovery assays done with standard canthaxanthin to feed ingredient resulted in an average recovery of 103%. Variation coefficient was less than 3.53%. This method is proved to be simple, precise, sensitive and reproductive.