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Abstract
Artemisia annua L. (Quinghao) is a promising and potent source of antimalarial herbal drug. Its activity has been ascribed to the content of artemisinin; it has been analyzed by different chromatographic techniques. In this research, we have developed a TLC/UV, a simply available, rapid, and cost-efficient method, for the simultaneous determination of artemisinin. The crude extracts from plant samples were used together with a standard in our HPLC/UV and TLC/UV techniques. Artemisinin (standard and in the extract) was converted into a UV-absorbing compound, Q258 by being treated with 0.25% (by weight) NaOH solution and then 0.2 M acetic acid. The resulting TLC method utilizes separation on silica gel RP-18 with methanol, acetonitrile, ethyl acetate, acetic acid (30:20:2:1) as mobile phase, highly specific densitometric evaluation at 254 nm. This precise and accurate assay could be performed in the linear working range of 10–100 µg/mL and 1–40 µg/mL for TLC and HPLC methods, respectively. The new technique has enabled us to screen high artemisinin producing plants from a large number of samples.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors would like to thank the University of Guilan and Iranian Biological Resource Center (IBRC) for their financial support.