Simultaneous determination of berberine hydrochloride and palmatine hydrochloride in Cortex Phellodendri chi- nensis by capillary electrophoresis

OBJECTIVE To establish an analytical method for simultaneous determination of berberine hydrochloride and palmatine hy-drochloride in Cortex Phellodendri chinensis.METHODS High performance capillary electrophoresis was used with the mobile phase consisting of 50 mmol·L-1 sodium tetraborate solution-methanol (85:15, pH 7.0). The applied voltage was 14 kV and detection wavelength was at 265 nm. RESULTS The linear curves for berberine hydrochloride and palmatine hydrochloride were obtained in the range of 0.005 - 0.08 mg·mL-1( r = 0.999 7) and 0.002 - 0.03 g·L-1( r = 0.998 5),respectively.The recovery was 98.3% with RSD of 1.89% for berberine hydrochloride and 99.4% with RSD of 2.21% for palmatine hydrochloride. CONCLUSION The method can be applied to the simultaneous analysis of berberine hydrochloride and palmatine hydrochloride in Cortex Phellodendri chinensis.