Recovery and recycling of solvent of counter‐current chromatography: The sample of isolation of zeaxanthin in the Lycium barbarum L. fruits

Abstract

An efficient method of recovering and recycling solvent for counter‐current chromatography was established by which zeaxanthin was separated from Lycium barbarum L. fruits. A column with activated carbon combined with high performance counter‐current chromatography formed the recovering and recycling solvent system. Using the solvent system of n‐hexane–ethyl acetate–ethanol–water (8:2:7:3, v/v) from the references, five injections were performed with an almost unchanged purity of zeaxanthin (80.9, 81.2, 81.5, 81.3, and 80.2% respectively) in counter‐current chromatography separation. Meanwhile, the mobile phase reduced by half than conventional counter‐current chromatography. By this present method, an effective improvement of counter‐current chromatography solvent utilization was achieved.

Development of a general separation strategy by countercurrent chromatography using sanshools from Zanthoxylum bungeanum oleoresin as a case study

“…Of all system combinations tested, system (−9,7) showed the best resolution during practical separation and was selected as the best solvent system for subsequent separations with a ratio of 19:1:1:5.67. However, due to low resolution (the resolution between hydroxy-ε-sanshool and HAS was 0.154, while that between HAS and HBS was 0.31), the elution mode was changed to recycling mode for improved separation [3,6,[23][24][25][26].…”

“…Additionally, the CCC principle provides different elution modes to improve separation resolution [2]. Numerous examples of CCC separation have demonstrated diverse practicability of these elution modes [3][4][5][6][7], however, choosing between them is obscure in practical separation for CCC users. Therefore, it is necessary to induct common separation strategies that include both solvent system selection and elution mode choice.…”