Determination of alkaloids in Sinomenium acutum by field‐amplified sample stacking in capillary electrophoresis with chemiluminescene detection

A simple and rapid capillary electrophoresis (CE) with an acidic potassium permanganate chemiluminescence (CL) detection method was developed to determine three alkaloids (curine, sinomenine and magnoflorine) simultaneously. A laboratory‐built CE–CL detection interface was used. The field‐amplified sample stacking technique was applied to the online concentration of alkaloids. Experimental conditions for CE separation and CL detection were investigated in detail to acquire optimum conditions. Under optimal conditions, the three alkaloids were baseline separated within 6 min, and the detection limits (S/N = 3) ranged from 0.03 µg/mL to 0.49 µg/mL. This method was successfully applied to determine the above three alkaloids in Sinomenium acutum, and the result of the determination of sinomenine was in good agreement with those given by high‐performance liquid chromatography and CE methods. In addition, a possible CL reaction mechanism of sinomenine–KMnO₄–H₂SO₄ was proposed. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.