Fingerprinting of traditional Chinese medicines on the C18-Diol mixed-mode column in online or offline two-dimensional liquid chromatography on the single column modes

In the present study, a mixed-mode stationary phase, C18-Diol, was applied for fingerprint analysis of traditional Chinese medicines. Hydrophobic, hydrogen bonding and electrostatic interactions were demonstrated to contribute the retention separately or jointly, which endowed the C18-Diol stationary phase with distinct selectivity compared to the bare C18 one. The separation of total alkaloids extracted from Fritillaria hupehensis was compared on the C18-Diol and conventional C18 column with the greater resolving power and better symmetry responses on the former one. Besides, a novel two-dimensional liquid chromatography on the single column (2D-LC-1C) was realized on C18-Diol with the offline mode for the alcohol extract of Fritillaria hupehensis and online mode for Ligusticum chuanxiong Hort. The early co-eluted extracted components with great polarity on the first dimension were reinjected on the same column and well separated on the second dimension. The results exhibited that the two complementary RPLC and HILIC modes on C18-Diol stationary phase enhanced the separation capacity and revealed more abundant chemical information of the sample, which was a powerful tool in analyzing complex herbal medicines.