Determination of rhein, baicalin and berberine in traditional Chinese medicinal preparations by capillary electrophoresis with two‐marker technique

Abstract

A CZE method for the identification and determination of three bioactive components, rhein, baicalin and berberine, was developed, with 10 mM borate at pH 9.20 as background electrolyte and direct UV detection at 254 nm. The two-marker (glycyrrhizin acid and cefalexin) technique was used to improve the repeatability of analysis. When the migration indices were used, the repeatability was greatly enhanced compared with migration times. The apparent dissociation contents of rhein and baicalin were also obtained. This method has been successfully applied to the simultaneous analysis of the three components with the recoveries from 96.7% to 104.6%.