Abstract
Two stability-indicating chromatographic methods are reported for the determination of methyl gallate in crude extracts of Bauhinia retusa. Separation by high performance thin layer chromatography was conducted on silica gel aluminum sheets using 9.5:0.5:0.2 (v/v/v) chloroform:methanol:acetic acid at 280 nm. The results from the 2-40 µg/band were used to prepare a linear calibration graph. The limits of detection and quantitation were 0.5 and 1.5 µg/band, respectively. The reverse phase high performance liquid chromatographic isolation of methyl gallate was performed at ambient temperature with an injection volume of 10 μL. The mobile phase consisted of 40:60 (v/v) methanol:0.1% ortho-phosphoric acid. The separation was performed at 1 mL/min using a detection wavelength of 280 nm. The calibration graph for methyl gallate was rectilinear from 0.02-40 µg/mL with limits of detection and quantitation of 0.004 and 0.010 µg/mL, respectively. For both methods, intra-day and inter-day precision were evaluated and the relative standard deviation was less than 2%, indicating good precision. The robustness was evaluated by making small and deliberate changes to appropriate parameters and the calculated relative standard deviation was less than 2%.The chromatographic methods were employed to determine methyl gallate in crude Bauhinia retusa extracts.