Abstract:

Centella asiatica （L.） Urban extract is usually used as a cosmetic raw material, which has whitening, antioxidant and other effects. The main substances to play this effect are asiaticoside and madecassoside. In this paper, a high performance liquid chromatography-evaporative light scattering detection （HPLC-ELSD） technique was used to determine the content of asiaticoside and madecassoside in Centella asiatica （L.） Urban. Unitary C₁₈ column （4.6×250 mm, 5 μm） with acetonitrile-water as the mobile phase was used for gradient elution at a flow rate of 1 mL/min. Column temperature was 30 ℃. Agilent 1260 Infinity Ⅱ detector （drift tube temperature was 70 ℃） was used for column elution with the carrier gas flow rate at 1.6 L/min. The results show that the concentrations of asiaticoside and madecassoside are 100-702 mg/L and 105-738 mg/L, respectively. The linear relationship between peak area and concentration is good, and the correlation coefficients are 0.999 6 and 0.999 7, respectively. The average recoveries of asiaticoside and madecassoside are 101.20% and 98.30%, respectively. The relative standard deviations （RSD） are all within 3%. The method is simple, accurate, effective and less interference, and can be used for the determination of asiaticoside and madecassoside in Centella asiatica （L.） Urban.

Key words: Centella asiatica （L.） Urban, high performance liquid chromatography-evaporative light scattering detector, asiaticoside, madecassoside