Separation by capillary zone electrophoresis of the active anthraquinone components of the Chinese herb Polygonum multiflorum Thunb

A CE method has been developed for separation and determination of the acti ve anthraquinone components physcion, chrysophanol, aloe-emodin, emodin, an d rhein of the Chinese herb Polygonum multiflorum Thunb. The five anthraqui none compounds were separated to baseline with the optimum running buffer(2 4 mM disodium hydrogen phosphate + 30% (v/v) acetonitrile) and the amounts of the compounds in prepared and crude herb were quantitatively analyzed wi thin 20 min. The effects of buffer pH and organic modifier (acetonitrile) c oncentration on the separation of the solutes were also investigated.