Simultaneous Determination of Pyridoxine and Riboflavin in Energy Drinks by High-Performance Liquid Chromatography with Fluorescence Detection

Energy drinks, as familiar consumer products, have been widely used in laboratory courses to help promote student interest, as well as to connect lecture concepts with laboratory work. Energy drinks contain B vitamins: pyridoxine (vitamin B6) and riboflavin (vitamin B2) of which amounts are high enough to be of concern. In this work, a fast and inexpensive high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) coupled with fluorescence detection method for determining pyridoxine and riboflavin simultaneously in energy drinks is developed. It takes advantage of the native fluorescence of B vitamins and provides high selectivity and sensitivity with low background noise. The method is suitable for undergraduate students, but it could be used for graduate level too including extra tasks such optimization and validation stages.