Abstract

When extracting semi-volatile components of herbal medicines using hot water vapor, some substances may react with water vapor or oxygen, and some volatile substances may be lost, when using an organic solvent extraction method has the disadvantage that it may contain a non-volatile material and residual organic solvent. In addition, it is inefficient to separate semi-volatile substances from herbal medicines into each single component and conduct biological activity research for each component to determine the effective ingredient, and some components may be lost in the separation process. In this study, semi-volatile substances evaporated under two pressure-reduced conditions in Chinese herbal medicines such as Cnidii Rhizoma, Aucklandiae Radix and Amomum Fructus were separated by cooling with liquid nitrogen. Those were analyzed by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) to identify the components, and this method may be used to study biological activities at the cellular level. The substances separated under reduced pressure, essential oil obtained by simultaneous distillation extraction (SDE) method and substances by using solid phase micro-extraction (SPME) from Cnidii Rhizoma, Aucklandiae Radix and Amomum Fructus were analyzed by GC-MS. In the case of Cnidii Rhizoma and Aucklandiae Radix, there were some differences among the essential oil components obtained by SDE and those identified by low temperature capture (CT) and SPME method, these were believed to be produced by some volatiles reacting with water or oxygen at the boiling point temperature of water.