Abstract
A new chromatographic approach for separating cocoa procyanidins according to their degree of polymerization (dp) was developed. The technique utilizes diol stationary phase columns operating in normal phase mode with a binary gradient of acidified acetonitrile and methanol-water. Performance of the diol stationary phase was evaluated on an analytical scale utilizing classical chromatographic conditions for the normal phase separation of procyanidins according to dp. The new separation approach was developed on an analytical scale but further extended to the preparative scale. These newly developed analytical and preparative HPLC procedures were successfully applied to the separation and isolation of cacao procyanidins from unfermented cocoa beans. The dp associated with each mol. wt. fraction was determined by MS.
