Determination of solanesol in the extracts of tobacco leaves by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC)
Zhao, J.; Wang, C.; Sun, X.
Se Pu 15(6): 544-545
1997
ISSN/ISBN: 1000-8713 PMID: 15739347 Document Number: 475668
Solanesol, a terpene compound mainly isolated from tobacco, is an important intermediate of medicines such as vitamin K2 and coenzyme Q10. This paper presents an HPLC method for the determination of solanesol in the extracts of tobacco leaves. Solanesol is separated completely on a Zorbax-SIL column, 250 mm x 4.6 mm i.d., by using a mixture of n-hexane, isopropyl ether and ethyl acetate (6:3:1) as mobile phase and determined refractometrically. The isopropyl ether makes the chromatographic peak sharp and the addition of ethyl acetate can prevent the column from blockade during the analysis, and the appropriate temperature (30 degrees C) is beneficial to the shortening of analysis time. This method is fast, accurate and reproducible. It has good linear relationship in the range of 0.2-4 microg. The results have shown that the average recovery is 96.4% and coefficient of variation is 2.8%.