Browsing by Author "Sorkpor, Lorlornyo"

Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    The design of an HPLC method for the estimation of the amount of reserpine tn rauwolfla vomitoria
    (2001) Sorkpor, Lorlornyo
    Reserpine is an alkaloid that is extracted from some species of Rauwolfia. The African specie R. vomitoria has high amounts of the alkaloids which have hypotensive. neuroleptic and sympatholytic actions. Due to the increasing export market for the plant material, and the requirement of analytical report on the product by exporters, there is the urgent need for the development of an analytical method to estimate the amount of alkaloid in a sample of the plant. Extraction of the alkaloid involves percolation of the powdered root bark of the plant in 6°/o acetic acid for two hours and extracting with chloroform. The official UV spectrophotometric and titrimetric methods were found to be inefficient in the estimation of reserpine in the plant material. However, manipulating chromatographic conditions yielded an HPLC method in which the alkaloidal extract could be assayed using a normal phase column, a mobile phase composition of 10% ethanol in chloroform and a flow rate of 1 .0ml/min. The method developed revealed that, the dried root bark sample of the plant from Aprokumase in the Eastern Region of Ghana contained up to 0.434%w/w of reserpine and that from Nsaba in the Central Region contained up to 0.326%w/w of reserpine calculated using reserpine obtained from Dannex Ltd. as reference.