Simultaneous determination of p-hydroxyacetophenone, chlorogenic acid, and caffeic acid in Herba Artemisiae Scopariae by capillary electrophoresis with electrochemical detection

Capillary electrophoresis with electrochemical detection has been employed for the determination of p-hydroxyacetophenone, chlorogenic acid, and caffeic acid in Herba Artemisiae Scopariae (the dried sprout of Artemisia scoparia Waldst. et Kit.). The effects of several important factors, such as the concentration and the acidity of the running buffer, separation voltage, injection time, and detection potential, were investigated to acquire the optimum conditions. The detection electrode was a 300-mu m-diameter carbon disc electrode at a working potential of +0.90 V (relative to the saturated calomel electrode). The three analytes can be well separated within 11 min in a 40-cm-long fused-silica capillary at a separation voltage of 15 kV in 50 mM borate buffer (pH 9.2). The relation between peak current and analyte concentration was linear over about 3 orders of magnitude, with detection limits (signal-to-noise ratio of 3) of 0.31, 0.39, and 0.50 mu M for p-hydroxyacetophenone, chlorogenic acid, and caffeic acid, respectively. The proposed method has been successfully applied to monitor the three bioactive constituents in real plant samples and to differentiate between different herbal drugs with satisfactory assay results.