α-Carotene and β-carotene are a type of carotenoid and widely known as precursors to vitamin A in human body. They also have antioxidant activity.
The two carotenes are very similar in chemical structure. Since the difference is only in the position of a carbon-carbon double bond, it is difficult to separate them with widely-used monomeric ODS columns. To solve this problem, Inertsil ODS-P, which is a polymeric ODS column and superior in steric recognition, was used as a separation column in this note.