Determination of chlorophyll in marine waters: intercomparison of a rapid HPLC method with full HPLC, spectrophotometric and fluorometric methods

A statistical comparison was made between chlorophyll measurements made on a suite of marine samples by four methods. The methods were one complete and one rapid high-performance liquid chromatographic (HPLC) method, a fluorometric method and the traditional spectrophotometric method. Generally good agreement was found, provided that consideration was given to the presence of chlorophyllide a and allomers of chlorophyll a as determined by the HPLC methods. The rapid HPLC method (10 min per sample) is recommended as a convenient and accurate alternative to traditional methods for chlorophylls.