Quantitative Determination of Cannabinoids in Cannabis and Cannabis Products Using Ultra‐High‐Performance Supercritical Fluid Chromatography and Diode Array/Mass Spectrometric Detection

Ultra‐high‐performance supercritical fluid chromatography (UHPSFC) is an efficient analytical technique and has not been fully employed for the analysis of cannabis. Here, a novel method was developed for the analysis of 30 cannabis plant extracts and preparations using UHPSFC/PDA‐MS. Nine of the most abundant cannabinoids, viz. CBD, ∆8‐THC, THCV, ∆9‐THC, CBN, CBG, THCA‐A, CBDA, and CBGA, were quantitatively determined (RSDs < 6.9%). Unlike GC methods, no derivatization or decarboxylation was required prior to UHPSFC analysis. The UHPSFC chromatographic separation of cannabinoids displayed an inverse elution order compared to UHPLC. Combining with PDA‐MS, this orthogonality is valuable for discrimination of cannabinoids in complex matrices. The developed method was validated, and the quantification results were compared with a standard UHPLC method. The RSDs of these two methods were within ±13.0%. Finally, chemometric analysis including principal component analysis (PCA) and partial least squares‐discriminant analysis (PLS‐DA) were used to differentiate between cannabis samples.

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