Apocarotenoids determination in Capsicum chinense Jacq. cv. Habanero, by supercritical fluid chromatography-triple-quadrupole/mass spectrometry.

Relatively few studies are available in the literature on the apocarotenoids occurrence in food which are based on liquid chromatographic separation approaches and no reports are available on the apocarotenoids separation by SFC-APCI (+/-)/QqQ/MS. The dual purpose of this research was to investigate the apocarotenoids presence in red habanero peppers and to develop a novel SFC-APCI(+/-)/QqQ/MS methodology, using a novel fused-core C30 column, for the apocarotenoids detection in a fast and efficient way, for the first time. In this study, 25 different apocarotenoids were identified, 14 were free apocarotenoids and 11 were apocarotenoids fatty acids esters. The methodology allowed for all the separations to occur in less then five minutes. The detected Apo-10'-, Apo-14'- and Apo-15-capsorubinals and different Apo-8'-capsorubinal and Apo-10'-zeaxanthinals fatty acid esters had not been previously tentatively identified in any Capsicum species and, to the best of our knowledge, in any food matrix.