Research Article

Extraction of Artemisinin, an Active Antimalarial Phytopharmaceutical from Dried Leaves of Artemisia annua L., Using Microwaves and a Validated HPTLC-Visible Method for Its Quantitative Determination

Table 1

Screening of different mobile phases for optimization of better chromatographic separation between artemisinin and related impurities.

Mobile phase single or binary solvent mixtures (v/v) Time to travel to solvent front (seconds) Flow or velocity constant (mm2 s−1)Thin-layer chromatographic data
Thin-layer plate dataDensitogram data Specificity of separation (spot spectrum purity, i.e., peak purity data)
Number of theoretical plates () Number of theoretical plates ()Correlation values ()
Up slopeaDown slopeb

-Hexane : diethyl ether, 50 : 50604.2411.12800.283551.110.28766.130.9990530.998898
Methylene dichloride (100%)755.378.90150.192493.330.19729.960.9988460.997223
-Hexane : ethyl acetate, 75 : 25699.579.61160.283551.110.27807.540.9993330.999111
-Hexane : acetone, 80 : 20655.3910.25950.283551.110.28770.720.9990750.985880
Chloroform : methanol, 95 : 5960.227.00250.605662.040.60980.150.9992800.993213

Spot start to spot middle; bspot middle to spot end.