Lycopene is a type of carotenoid. It is found in red fruits and vegetables such as tomatoes, and known to have strong anti-oxidative effect. This note describes a determination method for lycopene in food samples using an HPLC system. In this method, not only retention time of lycopene but also those of α-carotene and β-carotene were determined.
The sample pretreatment is consisted of only liquid extraction and centrifugation. For the HPLC separation, 50 mm length Inertsil ODS-3 column packed with 2μm particle was used. As a result, sharp peaks were obtained from standard solution and food samples within 5 min under lower pressure than 15 MPa (150 bar).