Determination of safrole in different Asarum species by headspace gas chromatography

The development of a headspace GC method (HS-GC) to determine the safrole c ontent in different Asarum species from China and Europe, using eugenol as internal standard, is presented in this paper. The best results could be ac hieved by thermostating the samples at 100 degrees C for 30.0 min, adding 1 0 mu L of water to each sample. Optimum pressurisation and injection time s howed to be 3.0 min and 12 s, respectively. GC separation was performed on an SE-54 column. The HS-GC results for safrole were in good agreement with those obtained by direct GC analysis of the dichloromethane (DCM) plant ext racts. The investigated Asarum samples showed great deviations concerning t he safrole content even within the same Asarum species, e.g. Asarum himalai cum from Sichuan contained 0.0051 % of this compound, the same species from the province of Hebei 0.53 %.