Quality evaluation of raw materials and extract of Citrus aurantium

OBJECTIVE To establish a systematic quality evaluation for the raw materials and the extract of Citrus auran-tium.METHODS The contents of synephrine,neohesperidin,hesperidin, naringin and narirutin in the raw materials and the extracts of Citrus aurantium were determined by reversed-phase high performance liquid chromatography with an Inertsil ODS-3(4.6 mm×250 mm,5 μm) column, respectively. The chromatographic conditions for synephrine included the mobile phase consisting of methanol-water (composed of 0.02% phosphoric acid and 0.1 % sodium dodecyl sulfate) (7-4) at the flow rate of 0.6 mL·min-1, and the detection wavelength at 275 nm. For the determination of 4 flavonone glycosides, a mixture of methanol, water and acetic acid (38:58:4) were used as the mobile phase at the flow rate of 1.0 mL·min-1 ,with the detection wavelength at 284 nm.RESULTS The linear ranges were from 0.04 to 0.64 g·L-1 for synephrine, from 0.03 to 0.48 g·L-1 for hesperidin, and from 0.03 to 0.48 g·L-1 for naringin. The recoveries were 98.3% , 98.7% and 97.9% , respectively. CONCLUSION The methods are accurate, reliable, and helpful for the systematic quality evaluation of the raw materials and the extract of Citrus aurantium.