Determination of Camphor and Borneol in Traditional Chinese Medicines by Microwave-assisted Extraction and Gas Chromatography with Flame Ionization Detector

• Published in: Analytical letters 2008-01, Vol.41 (13), p.2387-2401
• Main Authors: Ye, Qing, Deng, Chunhui
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Analytical chemistry; Borneol; Camphor; Chemistry; Chromatographic methods and physical methods associated with chromatography; Exact sciences and technology; Extraction; Flame ionization detectors; Gas chromatographic methods; Gas chromatography; microwave-assisted extraction; Other chromatographic methods; Quantitative analysis; Solvents; Traditional chinese medicine; traditional Chinese medicines
• ISSN: 0003-2719; 1532-236X
• DOI: 10.1080/00032710802350583

In this work, microwave-assisted extraction (MAE) followed by gas chromatography with flame ionization detector (GC-FID) was developed for the rapid determination of camphor and borneol in three traditional Chinese medicines (TCM): Chrysanthemi indici, Flos Chrysanthemi indici and Amomum villosum lour. The optimal MAE conditions obtained were: acetone for solvent, with solvent having sample ratio of 12:1 (v/w); microwave power of 380 W, and an irradiation time of 4 min. Method validations were also studied. To demonstrate the proposed method, ultrasonic-assisted extraction (UAE) and steam distillation (SD), followed by GC-FID, were used to analyze camphor and borneol in thethree TCMs. The close results were obtained by the three methods. The results showed that the proposed MAE-GC-FID is a simple, rapid, and reliable method for quantitative analysis of camphor and borneol in TCM, and is also a potential tool for TCM quality assessment.