HPLC analysis of gingerols and shogaols discriminated from ginger extracts with a diode array detector.

A simple and inexpensive high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) method for the analysis of gingerols and shogaols in ginger extracts discriminated with a diode array detector (DAD) has been developed. The ginger extracts were well separated with a linear gradient elution from mixed solvents of water and methanol to methanol within 30 min by using different C18 columns. The separated components were detected with a DAD. The gingerols and shogaols were discriminated from other components based on their same chromophore, which differs from other components. These components can be accurately and quantitatively analyzed contrast to the quality control method，INA method 114.000，which has severe separation and peak identification problems. Different samples prepared by solvent extraction and supercritical carbon dioxide extraction were analyzed by using our developed HPLC-DAD method. This method is quite promising for origin analysis of ginger rhizome slices with overlapped chromatograms of different detection wavelength.