Abstract

Admixture of exhausted drugs is one of the major menace faced by the herbal industry. This paper presents a new, simple, selective and precise high performance thin-layer chromatographic (HPTLC) method, which is validated to determine the quantities of trans-caryophyllene and piperine content in an Ayurvedic formulation Trikatu churna. The method employed HPTLC aluminum plates precoated with silica-gel 60F-254 as stationary phase. The solvent system consists of toluene: ethyl acetate (9:3 v/v) and was found to give compact spots for trans-caryophyllene (R_f value of 0.33) and piperine (R_f value of 0.26). Analysis of these compounds was carried out in the absorbance mode at 254 nm. The calibration curves were linear in the range of (1 to 12 µg). The method is simple, specific, rapid and reliable for simultaneous determination of trans-caryophyllene and piperine in Trikatu churna, which can speed up detection of exhausted drugs.

Key words: Adulteration, trans-caryophyllene, piperine, trikatuchurna, validation