Automatic Screening of 30 Alkaloids by Hyphenation of HPLC with MS

HPLC in hyphenation with MS was applied to establish data base of mass spectra and parameters of retention time of 30 common alkaloids. Analytical procedures were carried out under the following conditions: ① chromatographic column :ZORBAX sb-aq. (2.1 mm×150 mm, 3.5 μm, with precolumn); ② column temp.: 30 ℃; ③ mobile phase: mixture of formic acid+water (0.1+99.9) and formic acid+methanol (0.1+99.9) in different ratios for gradient elution; ④ flow-rate: 0.4 mL·min-1; ⑤ vol. of sample introduction: 10 μL; ⑥ electrospray ionization source (ESI); ⑦ automatic ternary MS scanning; ⑧ scanning range: 50-1 000 aum. Automation in operations of screening of alkaloids in drugs was attained by using the software of de-convolution of spectra and locking on retention times. The proposed method has been used instead of the conventional manual operations, in the inspection of substantial cases, displaying its specificity of avoiding missing in detection and decreasing the probability of false-positivity.