Abstract: A method of high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) was developed for the separation and determination of six acidic components (cohumulone, humulone, adhumulone, colupulone, lupulone and adlupulone) in hops extracts. The effects of several important factors, such as the addition of acid, the organic solvent of elution solution and the column temperature, were investigated to acquire the optimum conditions. The separation was carried out on a Hypersil ODS2 column (250 mm×4.6 mm, 5 μm). A mixture of acetonitrile-0.1%(v/v) phosphoric acid solution (pH 2.2) (65:35, v/v) was used as the mobile phase at a flow rate of 1.0 mL/min in isocratic elution mode. The column temperature was kept at room temperature, and the detection wavelength was set at 315 nm. The six acidic components reached baseline separation, and were identified by ultraviolet spectroscopy, infrared spectroscopy and mass spectrometry. The results show that this method is suitable for the analysis of acidic components in hops extracts owing to the stable and simple performance.

Key words: adhumulone, cohumulone, colupulone, humulone, adlupulone, high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), hops extract, lupulone