1H NMR quantification of cannabidiol (CBD) in industrial products derived from Cannabis sativa L. (hemp) seeds

A practicable and reliable quantitative proton nuclear magnetic resonance (1H qNMR) method was developed and evaluated for the qualitative and quantitative determination of cannabidiol (CBD), the principal and most important among cannabinoids in Cannabis sativa L. (hemp), and present in food products and animal feeding derived from the industrial processing of hemp seeds. Specificity, sensitivity, linearity range, precision, accuracy, LOD and LOQ of the method proved to be entirely satisfactory. This spectroscopic method uses the unlabelled residual solvent of CDCl3 as the "intrinsic" internal standard. The develop procedure might also be applied to measure levels of all the other lawful natural cannabinoids in commercial productions obtained from hemp seeds. Moreover, the rapid and relatively economical quantification of CBD could be of great importance, because it is possible to candidate this cannabinoid to the role of a molecular marker attesting food processing quality.