Simultaneous Enrichment and Purification of Licorice Chalcone A and Isoliquiritigenin in Licorice Using a Mixed-Mode Monolith

In this paper, a mixed-mode monolith was prepared by separately synthesizing hydrophilic and hydrophobic materials at both ends of a chromatography column by a one-step method. The prepared mixed mode monolith was used as solid phase extraction adsorbent for simultaneous enrichment and purification of licorice chalcone A and isoliquiritigenin from licorice combined with high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). It had superior ability to enrich and purify licorice chalcone A and isoliquiritigenin than single hydrophilic or hydrophobic monolith. The method had good linearity in the range of 0.50–400 μg/mL. The linear regression equation was y = 465.45 ×  − 1.04 and the correlation coefficient was 0.9999. The relative standard deviations (RSDs) of intra-day and inter-day precision were both less than 1.19%. The results showed that the method was simple and accurate, and could be used for the enrichment and purification of licorice chalcone A and isoliquiritigenin from licorice.