Preparative separation and purification of Cyclosporin D from fungus Hypoxylon Spp. by improved closed-loop recycling counter-current chromatography

Application of one-step inner-recycling counter-current chromatography for the preparative separation and purification of chemical constituents from the rhizome of Bergenia ciliate (haw.) Sternb

Bergenia ciliata (haw.) Sternb, the renowned pharmaceutical plant in Jammu and Kashmir of Pakistan, is widely applied in treating different illnesses including diabetes, diarrhea, and vomiting. This work employed an efficient one-step inner-recycling counter-current chromatography for preparative separating and purifying compounds with similar partition coefficients from the rhizome of Bergenia ciliate (haw.). Five compounds, including quercetin rhamnodiglucoside (1), quercetin-3-O-rutinoside (2), bergenine (3), kaempferol (4), and palmatic acid (5), were successfully separated using the optimized biphasic solvent system that contained ter-butylmetylether/n-butanol/acetonitrile/water (2:2:1:5, v/v) with the purities over 98%. Mass spectrometry and nuclear magnetic resonance were conducted for structural identification. As a result, our proposed strategy might be applied in separating compounds with similar partition coefficients, which was advantageous with regard to the less solvent and time consumption, and the increased number of theoretical plates.

The separation regularity of the three-phase solvent system of counter-current chromatography based on polarity parameter modeling

The three-phase solvent system of counter-current chromatography can separate compounds with a wide range of polarity, but there is no study of its separation regularity. Therefore, in this work, the separation regularity of the three-phase solvent system was initially investigated from the perspective of solvent polarities and compound polarities. The standard compounds covering a wide polarity range were selected, and three-phase solvent systems, n-hexane/methyl acetate/acetonitrile/water, and n-hexane/methyl tert-butyl ether/acetonitrile/water were used for modeling. The results showed that in the three-phase solvent system, the partition coefficient for the middle and lower phases (lgK_M/L) increased with increasing logP values in three intervals logP < 0, 0 < logP < 4, and logP > 4. In addition, the partition coefficient for the upper and middle phases (lgK_U/M) between the upper and middle phases of the small polarity compounds increases with increasing logP values. LogP vs lgK_M/L of 7 solvent systems were employed for the smoothing spline fit through a predictive model design of the curve fitting toolbox in MATLAB software, and good results were achieved. LogP versus lgK_M/L for n-hexane/methyl tert-butyl ether/acetonitrile/water solvent systems were used for the second-order power fit, and satisfactory results were obtained. The relationship between polarity parameters and separation case parameters was explored using a heat map approach. The separation regularity of the three-phase solvent system was preliminarily investigated. This regularity study gives hope of assistance to the chemists studying three-phase solvents and counter-current chromatography.

Intermittent sample loading technique as a tool for obtaining high- concentration elution bands in recycling liquid-liquid chromatography: Theoretical study of periodic and semi-continuous separation processes

To improve the efficiency of countercurrent chromatography (CCC) separations, we have previously proposed a new sample loading method called intermittent sample loading (ISL), in which continuous sample feed alternates with short periods of "clean" mobile phase feed to the CCC device. In semi-continuous separation processes, during sample feed periods, the sample is loaded in separate batches, each consisting of a series of intermittent sample loads. It was shown that the application of the intermittent sample loading method in the conventional isocratic CCC separations significantly increased process productivity and the concentration of compounds in the separated fractions. In this study, to further improve the CCC separations with intermittent sample loading, we discuss the application of the ISL method in the processes of close-loop recycling counter-current chromatography (CLR CCC). The advantage of the ISL CLR CCC over the ISL CCC is higher resolution and lower solvent consumption. Equations are presented that allow the simulation of periodic and semi-continuous ISL CLR CCC separations and the selection of optimal operational conditions for these separation processes. It is shown that the use of ISL technique in CLR CCC separations makes it possible to produce fractions of compounds with a much higher concentration than when using the conventional single sample loading method.