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Whole cereal grains are a good source of phenolic acids associated with reduced risk of chronic diseases. This paper reports the development and validation of a high-performance liquid chromatography-diode array detection (HPLC-DAD) method for the determination of phenolic acids in cereals in either free or bound form. Extraction of free phenolic acids and clean-up was performed by an optimised solid-phase extraction (SPE) protocol on Oasis HLB cartridges using aqueous methanol as eluant. The mean recovery of analytes ranged between 84% and 106%. Bound phenolic acids were extracted using alkaline hydrolysis with mean recoveries of 80-95%, except for gallic acid, caffeic acid and protocatechuic acid. Both free and bound phenolic extracts were separated on a Nucleosil 100 C-18 column, 5 mu m (250 mm x 4.6 mm) thermostated at 30 degrees C, using a linear gradient elution system consisting of 1% (v/v) acetic acid in methanol. Method validation was performed by means of linearity, accuracy, intra-day and inter-day precision and sensitivity. Detection limits ranged between 0.13 and 0.18 mu g/g. The method was applied to the analysis of free and bound phenolic acids contents in durum wheat, bread wheat, barley, oat, rice, rye, corn and triticale. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.