Simple coupled ultrahigh performance liquid chromatography and ion chromatography technique for simultaneous determination of folic acid and inorganic anions in folic acid tablets

Folic acid plays a significant role during periods of rapid cells division and growth. Pregnant women require folic acid daily, either from dietary supplements or folic acid tablets in order to prevent fetal neural tube defects. In this work, a simple coupled ultrahigh performance liquid chromatography and ion chromatography technique was developed for simultaneous determination of folic acid and inorganic anions in folic acid tablets. A reversed-phase C18 column was used as the pretreatment column for on-line separating inorganic anions from organics. Inorganic anions were concentrated in the concentration column. Under the optimal chromatographic conditions, good sensitivity and linear calibration-curves (r   ≥   0.9992) were obtained. Low detection limits were obtained in the range of 0.0032–0.40   mg   L −1 for all analytes. Repeatability results were satisfactory with relative standard deviations less than 1.50% (n   =   5). The developed method was utilized to analyze spiked folic acid tablet samples with good measured recoveries (92.4–107.4%).