Determination of hesperetin, cinnamic acid and nicotinic acid in propolis with micellar electrokinetic capillary chromatography

Micellar electrokinetic capillary chromatography (MEKC) has been used to determine hesperetin, cinnamic acid and nicotinic acid in propolis. After systematically study the effect of buffer concentration and pH, micellar concentration, organic modifier, applied voltage and injection time, the analytical conditions were optimized. Under the optimized conditions, the three analytes could be well separated in 20 min. A good linearity between the peak current and the concentration was found in the range of 0.02-0.60 mg/ml, 0.05-1.20 mg/ml and 0.10-1.40 mg/ml with correlation coefficients of 0.9989, 0.9995 and 0.9990 for hesperetin, cinnamic acid and nicotinic acid, respectively. The detection limits were 0.006 mg/ml (hesperetin), 0.017 mg/ml (cinnamic acid) and 0.036 mg/ml (nicotinic acid). The validity of the method was verified by analyzing the three analytes in propolis oral liquids.