Determination and differentiation of Flos Chrysanthemum based on characteristic electrochemical profiles by capillary electrophoresis with electrochemical detection

A high-performance capillary electrophoresis with electrochemical detection (CE-ED) method has been developed for the analysis of bioactive ingredients in Flos Chrysanthemum in this work. The effects of several factors such as the acidity and concentration of running buffer, the separation voltage, the applied potential, and the injection time were investigated. Under the optimum conditions, the eight analytes could be well separated within 20 min at the separation voltage of 14 kV in a 50 mmol/L Borax running buffer (pH 9.2). A 300 microm diameter carbon disk electrode has a good response at a potential of +950 mV (vs SCE) for all analytes. Good linear relationship was established over 3 orders of magnitude with detection limits (S/N = 3) that ranged from 1.9 x 10(-7) to 3.0 x 10(-8) g/mL. This proposed method has been successfully applied for the determination and differentiation of six kinds of popular Flos Chrysanthemum samples based on their characteristic electrochemical profiles, and the results are satisfactory.