Rapid determination of atropine and scopolamine content in scopolia extract powder by HPLC

A rapid method that does not require a complicated preparation was developed for determining by HPLC the content of atropine (At) and scopolamine (Sc) in a sample of scopolia extract powder. The sample solution for HPLC was extracted using 0.1 mol/L HCl/methanol (8:2). At and Sc were separated using a pentafluorophenylpropyl column and detected at a wavelength of 210 nm. Acetonitrile-10 mmol/L ammonium acetate adjusted to pH 5.0 (8:2, v/v) was used as the mobile phase. The linearity was good in the 5.0-500 μg/mL range for At and 0.5-500 μg/mL range for Sc. The specificity for both At and Sc was satisfactory. The quantitation limits were 5.0 μg/mL for At and 0.5 μg/mL for Sc. The quantitative values of total alkaloid calculated using this method were higher (1.3-3.7%) than those obtained using the Japanese Pharmacopoeia Fifteenth Edition (JP15) method. The precision of this method, measured as the standard deviation, was found to be satisfactory and comparable to that of the JP15 method, determined by an analysis of 3 commercial scopolia extract powder samples.