Simple preparative gas chromatographic method for isolation of menthol and menthone from peppermint oil, with quantitative GC‐MS and 1H NMR assay

The quantitative performance of a simple home‐built preparative gas chromatography (prep‐GC) arrangement was tested, incorporating a micro‐fluidic Deans switch, with collection of the target compound in a deactivated uncoated capillary tube. Repeat injections of a standard solution and peppermint sample were made into the prep‐GC instrument. Individual compounds were eluted from the trapping capillary, and made up to constant volume. Chloronaphthalene internal standard was added in some cases. Recovered samples were quantitatively assayed by using GC‐MS. Calibration linearity of GC‐MS for menthol standard area response against number of injections (2–20 repeat injections) was excellent, giving R2of 0.996. For peppermint, menthol correlation over 2–20 repeated injections was 0.998 for menthol area ratio (versus IS) data. Menthone calibration for peppermint gave an R2of 0.972. 1H NMR spectroscopy was conducted on both menthol and menthone. Good correspondence with reference spectra was obtained. About 80 μg of isolated menthol and menthone solute was collected over a sequence of 80 repeat injections from the peppermint sample, as assayed by 600 MHz 1H NMR analysis (∼100% recovery for menthol from peppermint). A procedure is proposed for prediction of number of injections required to acquire sufficient material for NMR detection.