Development and validation of a method for the determination of tanshinones in supercritical fluid extraction products by HPLC

摘要

Supercritical fluid extraction has been merging as a promising alternative technique for the extraction of the lipid soluble compounds from natural resources for the nutrient food. However, to evaluate SFE process and its products, it is usually only by measuring one of the main constituents or the extract yield, which sometimes would be thought as defective and unreasonable. In this article, we presented a multi-active component analysis method to evaluate the SFE of Salvia miltiorrhiza. A reverse-phase HPLC method for the simultaneous analysis of the four tanshinones (dihydrotanshinone I, cryptotanshinone, tanshinone I and tanshinone IIA) from the SFE products was developed with a phase composition as water/acetonitrile. The gradient elution of the mobile phase was 60% (acetonitrile) in 0-17 min, 60-80% in 17-25 min, and 80% in 25-30 min. By this comprehensive evaluation method, the SFE process of Salvia miltiorrhiza was investigated and variables involved in the procedure such as pressure, temperature, and extraction time were optimized.