Determination of Camphor in Traditional Chinese Medicines by Gas Chromatography with Flame Ionization Detector

In this work, gas chromatography with flame ionization detector (GC-FID) was developed for the rapid determination of camphor and borneol in two traditional Chinese medicines (TCM): Fructus Amomi and Curcuma Aromatica Salisb. The optimal conditions obtained were: ethyl acetate for solvent, volume of ethyl acetate and extraction time of 30 min. Method validations were also studied. To demonstrate the proposed method. The results showed that the proposed GC-FID is a simple, rapid, and reliable method for quantitative analysis of camphor in TCM, and is also a potential tool for TCM quality assessment.