A three-phase microfluidic chip for rapid sample clean-up of alkaloids from plant extracts

Abstract

A three-phase microchip was developed for the rapid and efficient small-scale purification of alkaloids from plant extracts. As part of the development of such a three-phase microchip, first a two-phase microchip with two channels (3.2 cm and 9.3 cm) was used to study the extraction efficiency of strychnine nitrate and strychnine at various flow rates. Strychnine was extracted from a basic aqueous phase to a chloroform phase (extraction) or strychnine was extracted from a chloroform phase into an acidic aqueous phase (back extraction). Subsequently, the "simultaneous extraction and back extraction" of strychnine was carried out in a three-phase microchip. The experimental extraction rate and yield were compared with model data. At a residence time of 25 sec, 79.5% of strychnine was extracted into the acidic aqueous phase using the three-phase microchip. In general, a good correlation was found between experimental results and model data for both two- and three-phase extractions. Finally, the three-phase microchip was employed in the purification of alkaloids (strychnine and brucine) from Strychnos seed extracts.

Recent developments in the rapid analysis of plants and tracking their bioactive constituents

“…The transport is so fast because diffusion is fast at these small distances. According to HPLC, polar impurities remained in the basic aqueous phase (Tetala et al 2009). Thus proof of principle was obtained that this lab-on-a-chip device can combine two separate LLE steps.…”

Selectively modified microfluidic chip for solvent extraction of Radix Salvia Miltiorrhiza using three-phase laminar flow to provide double liquid–liquid interface area

“…(1) Laminar flow extraction is employed to separate the two categories of components in Radix Salvia Miltiorrhiza. Except extracting strychnine in one recent paper (Tetala et al 2009), as far as we know, there is no any reports about herb medicine (or plant) extraction by laminar flow extraction in microfluidic chip. Laminar flow extraction, as an efficient and important alternative to conventional methods, would benefit the development of herb medicine.…”

“…However, the actual extraction ratio is not very high. For example, it is 50% for Y(III) (Maruyama et al 2004), 26.1-36.1% for methamphetamine (Miyaguchi et al 2006) and 79.5% for strychnine (Tetala et al 2009). It may be due to the short extraction time and short length of extracting channel that utilized.…”

“…Three-phase laminar flow has already been employed in laminar flow extraction for ''simultaneous extraction and back-extraction'' (Surmeian et al 2002;Maruyama et al 2004;Tetala et al 2009). However, we exploit a previous unrecognized aspect of it; that is, three-phase laminar flow offers double interface area compared with two-phase laminar flow.…”

Applications of Microfluidics in the Agro-Food Sector: A Review

“…Microfluidics is suitable for these operations and microfluidic systems were developed to generate emulsions and foams, and for fluid mixing and dispersion (Skurtys and Aguilera, 2008). Tetala et al (2009) developed a three-phase microfluidic device for the small-scale purification of alkaloids from plant extracts. The device was employed in the purification of alkaloids (strychnine and brucine) from Strychnos seeds.…”