Asian Journal
Of Traditional Medicines

Abstract: A simple and fast Capillary Gas Chromatography (CGC) method was established for the simultaneous determination of four major components, namely 6-methyl-5-hepten-2-one, limonene, linalool and citral in essential oil from Litsea cubeba (Lour.) Pers. The CGC analysis was performed on a 30 m × 0.50 mm i.d. SE-54 capillary column, and was carried out with temperature programs by using nitrogen as carrier gas. The good linear regression relationship was obtained over the range of 0.030–1.502 mg·mL-1 (r = 0.9999) for 6-methyl-5-hepten-2-one, 0.018–0.894 mg·mL-1 (r = 0.9997) for Limonene, 0.016–0.809 mg·mL-1 (r = 0.9997) for Linalool , 0.079–3.962 mg·mL-1 (r = 0.9999) for citral, respectively. The method is accurate with overall intra-day variation and repeatability less than 5 % and the recovery more than 95 %. The contents of sample from different regions varied greatly. CGC was proved to be a quick and informative tool for analysis of essential oil from Litsea cubeba (Lour.) Pers. The method was successfully applied to analyze four major components.

Key words: Litsea cubeba（Lour.）Pers, 6-Methyl-5-hepten-2-one, limonene, linalool, citral, CGC