Flash gas chromatography for analysis of volatile compounds from Houttuynia cordata Thunb Original Research Article

This paper describes a novel analytical method, flash gas chromatography (FGC), for the analysis of volatile compounds from Houttuynia cordata Thunb. This method does not demand time-consuming extraction process. The ground powder of the plant material can be directly applied for the analysis and only a few milligrams of sample are needed. The identification of the components was made by FGC–MS. The results between FGC and ordinary GC (using the extracted essential oil as sample) were compared and found that FGC offered a similar number and types of the components with GC. FGC is a novel and feasible method for the quality control of traditional Chinese medicines (TCMs).