Abstract: The separation and determination of four important active components (imperatorin, isoimperatorin, phelloptorin and falcarindiol) from Angelica dahurica extract has been performed using capillary electrochromatography (CEC) with a methacrylate ester-based monolithic column. The effect of the porogen ratio on the column preparation was studied. The mobile phase composition, such as the concentration of organic solvent, the ionic strength and the pH of the buffer were also optimized. Under the optimized conditions (50% acetonitrile and 50% of a 20 mmol/L sodium dihydrogen phosphate electrolyte at pH 4.95, －25 kV), a fast and baseline separation of the four analytes was achieved. The calibration curves showed a good linearity (r2 ＞0.997) and the limits of detection were lower than 0.34 mg/L. The mean recoveries of the studied components ranged between 95.18% and 98.44%. The method developed is sensitive, reliable and suitable for the quality control. With this CEC system, the quality of Angelica dahurica extracts from 18 various regions was evaluated.

Key words: Angelica dahurica , capillary electrochromatography (CEC), falcarindiol, imperatorin, isoimperatorin, phelloptorin, methacrylate ester-based monolithic column