Determination of chlorogenic acid and rutin in cigarettes by an improved capillary electrophoresis indirect chemiluminescence system

Abstract

An improved capillary electrophoresis indirect chemiluminescence system was employed for the determination of chlorogenic acid and rutin in cigarette samples. After being separated by capillary electrophoresis, the analyte zones were determined by indirect chemiluminescence of luminol–potassium hexacyanoferrate. In this system, luminol was added into running buffer solution and introduced at the head of separation capillary, and potassium hexacyanoferrate was introduced at the end of the capillary. A high potential buffer reservoir was constructed from a running buffer cell and an electrode buffer one, which were jointed with a frit, in order to avoid luminol electrolysis in high potential reservoir and the excursion of chemiluminescence baseline. A low potential flow reservoir was used to prevent electrode buffer solution from the contamination of chemiluminescence waste. Therefore, the proposed capillary electrophoresis–chemiluminescence system can avoid the electrolysis of chemiluminescence reagent, retain the stability of chemiluminescence baseline and prolong the working time of running and electrode buffer solutions. In addition, the matrix of cigarette sample solutions has also an inhibitory effect on the chemiluminescence intensity in the indirect detection, whereas the influence was not observed in the separation of standard solutions. After the correction of matrix inhibition and the calibration with standard addition method, chlorogenic acid and rutin were determined in four cigarette samples by the improved capillary electrophoresis–chemiluminescence system.