An effective method for fast determination of artemisinin in Artemisia annua L. by high performance liquid chromatography with evaporative light scattering detection

Artemisinin isolated from the aerial parts of Artemisia annua L., is a promising and potent antimalarial drug, which meets the dual challenge posed by drug-resistant parasites and rapid progression of malarial illness. The aim of the current study was to develop a reliable and fast analytical procedure for the determination of artemisinin in A. annua using high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) with evaporative light scattering detection (ELSD) in couple with microwave-assisted extraction (MAE) as an efficient sample preparation technique. The HPLC conditions were Agilent C18 column using water:acetonitrile (40:60 v/v) mixture as mobile phase at a flow rate of 1 mL min⁻¹. ELSD conditions were optimized at nebulizer-gas flow rate of 2.0 L min⁻¹ and drift tube temperature of 70 °C under the impactor off-mode, and the gain was set at 2. Afterwards, method validation system for HPLC-ELSD analysis was developed. Calibration range was 0.2-1.0 mg mL⁻¹ and correlation coefficient r was above 0.9990. Precision experiments showed relative standard deviation (R.S.D.) of retention time was less than 0.5% and R.S.D. of peak area was less than 1.30%. Inter-day and intra-day variabilities showed that R.S.D. was ranged from 1.01% to 4.66%. Limit of detection was less than 40 μg mL⁻¹ and limit of quantification was less than 100 μg mL⁻¹. Accuracy validation showed that average recovery was between 98.23% and 104.97%. The developed analytical procedure was successfully applied to determine the contents of artemisinin in the different parts of A. annua plants.