LAUSR

&NA; The presented work describes the development and validation of a rapid UHPLC‐UV/CAD method using a core–shell particle column for the separation and quantitative analysis of seven plant sterols and stanols. The phytosterols (ergosterol, brassicasterol, campesterol, fucosterol, stigmasterol, and &bgr;‐sitosterol) and the phytostanol stigmastanol were separated and analyzed in 8.5 min. The sample pre‐treatment procedure was optimized to be less time‐consuming than any other published method, especially due to no need of derivatization, evaporation and even reconstitution step. The chromatographic separation was performed on the Kinetex 1.7 &mgr; Phenyl‐hexyl column (100 × 2.1 mm) with a mobile phase acetonitrile/water according to the gradient program at a flow rate of 0.9 mL min−1 and a temperature of 60 °C. A tandem connection of PDA and CAD (Corona Charged Aerosol Detector) was used and both detection techniques were compared. The method was validated using saponification as a first step in sample pre‐treatment and an universal CAD as the detector. Recoveries for all analyzed compounds were between 95.4% and 103.4% and relative standard deviation ranged from 1.0% to 5.8% for within‐day and from 1.4% to 6.7% for between‐day repeatability. The limits of detection were in the range of 0.4–0.6 &mgr;g mL−1 for standard solutions and 0.3–1.2 &mgr;g mL−1 for phytosterols in real samples. Although several gradient programs and different stationary phases were tested, two compounds, campesterol and campestanol, were not separated. Their peak was quantified as a sum of both analytes. Graphical abstract Figure. No caption available. Highlights Corona‐charged aerosol detector for the first time in the analysis of phytosterols and phytostanols was used.The fast chromatography method for separation of 7 phytosterols was developed.The method shows short time (8 min) of analysis using phenyl‐hexyl stationary phase.Method shows novel and alternative approach compared to C‐18 reversed phase separation and UV detection.