Abstract:

A new method was established for the determination of mixed policosanols by capillary gas chromatography (GC). Following extraction with chloroform, chromatographic separation and quantification were achieved on an SE-30 (30 m × 0.32 mm, 0.25 μm) capillary column using hexacosane as internal standard and N2 as carry gas with a flow rate of 1.7 ml/min in shunting model with a shunting ratio of 1:10 under the following conditions: air pressure 0.24 MPa, hydrogen pressure 0.11 MPa, injection port temperature 300 ℃, detection temperature of FID detector 300 ℃, constant column temperature 290 ℃, and injection volume 0.2 μl. The average spiked recovery of hexacosanol was 98.85% (n = 5), with a relative standard deviation (RSD) of 1.02%. Within 8 h, both test sample, a mixture of 4 policosanols and instrument performance showed good stability. This method has good repeatability and high precision, and therefore can be used to determinate policosanols.

Key words: gas chromatography (GC), policosanol, internal standard, peak area