Separation and determination of honokiol and magnolol in Chinese traditional medicines by capillary electrophoresis with the application of response surface methodology and radial basis function neural network.

A method for the separation and determination of honokiol and magnolol in Magnolia officinalis and its medicinal preparation is developed by capillary zone electrophoresis and response surface methodology. The concentration of borate, content of organic modifier, and applied voltage are selected as variables. The optimized conditions (i.e., 16 mmol/L sodium tetraborate at pH 10.0, 11% methanol, applied voltage of 25 kV and UV detection at 210 nm) are obtained and successfully applied to the analysis of honokiol and magnolol in Magnolia officinalis and Huoxiang Zhengqi Liquid. Good separation is achieved within 6 min. The limits of detection are 1.67 µg/mL for honokiol and 0.83 µg/mL for magnolol, respectively. In addition, an artificial neural network with "3-7-1" structure based on the ratio of peak resolution to the migration time of the later component (R(s)/t) given by Box-Behnken design is also reported, and the predicted results are in good agreement with the values given by the mathematic software and the experimental results.