Solid‐phase Extraction of β‐Sitosterol from Oldenlandia diffusa Using Molecular Imprinting Polymer

The β‐sitosterol imprinted polymer was prepared for selective extraction and analysis of β‐sitosterol from Oldenlandia diffusa (O. diffusa) followed by HPLC with UV detection. The imprinted polymers show high affinity and selectivity to β‐sitosterol. Using this molecularly imprinted polymer (MIP) cartridge as solid‐phase extraction (SPE) material, the interferences could be quickly washed out and β‐sitosterol was selectively retained and enriched. HPLC analysis method was used to evaluate the characteristics of this MIP material. At the condition of mobile phase composed of MeOH/H₂O/H₃PO₄ (99/1/0.1, V/V/V, pH=6.0) and the flow rate of 1.0 mL·min^?1, a good linear relationship was demonstrated when the concentrations of β‐sitosterol were in the range of 0.50–100.0 µg·mL^?1. The recoveries ranged from 75.3% to 86.5% and the inter‐day and intra‐day relative standard deviations were less than 5%. This developed HPLC method was proved to be acceptable for extraction of β‐sitosterol from O. diffusa.