Facile optimization for chromatographic separation of liquiritin and liquiritigenin

Enrichment of total flavones and licochalcone A from licorice residues and its hypoglycemic activity

Industrial processing of glycyrrhizic leads to a lot of residues which are usually threw away randomly or used as feed. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to study licorice residues as a source of bioactive compounds with potentially applications. In this study, the enrichment and purification of total flavones from the licorice residues was achieved by using macroporous resins. The performances and separation characteristics of four selected macroporous resins with different chemical and physical properties were investigated. HPD-100 resin was the most effective, the content of total flavones increased from 50.94% in the original extract to 82.98% in the 80% ethanol fraction (a 1.63-fold increase). Further purification treatment by polyamide resin, licochalcone A with a purity of 80.28% was obtained in a 45% ethanol fraction, and a higher purity (>85%) of licochalcone A can be obtained by single crystallization operation. And hypoglycemic effect of the total flavones from licorice residues on high fat diet and STZ induced diabetic c57 mice was preliminary investigated. The results showed: the fasting blood glucose of mice in the low and medium dose total flavones group decreased significantly. The proposed technique is uncomplicated, easily managed, cost-effective, and environmentally friendly and is proper for both large-scale licorice residues application and waste management.

Optimizing Column Length and Particle Size in Preparative Batch Chromatography Using Enantiomeric Separations of Omeprazole and Etiracetam as Models: Feasibility of Taguchi Empirical Optimization

The overreaching purpose of this study is to evaluate new approaches for determining the optimal operational and column conditions in chromatography laboratories, i.e., how best to select a packing material of proper particle size and how to determine the proper length of the column bed after selecting particle size. As model compounds, we chose two chiral drugs for preparative separation: omeprazole and etiracetam. In each case, two maximum allowed pressure drops were assumed: 80 and 200 bar. The processes were numerically optimized (mechanistic modeling) with a general rate model using a global optimization method. The numerical predictions were experimentally verified at both analytical and pilot scales. The lower allowed pressure drop represents the use of standard equipment, while the higher allowed drop represents more modern equipment. For both compounds, maximum productivity was achieved using short columns packed with small-particle size packing materials. Increasing the allowed backpressure in the separation leads to an increased productivity and reduced solvent consumption. As advanced numerical calculations might not be available in the laboratory, we also investigated a statistically based approach, i.e., the Taguchi method (empirical modeling), for finding the optimal decision variables and compared it with advanced mechanistic modeling. The Taguchi method predicted that shorter columns packed with smaller particles would be preferred over longer columns packed with larger particles. We conclude that the simpler optimization tool, i.e., the Taguchi method, can be used to obtain "good enough" preparative separations, though for accurate processes, optimization, and to determine optimal operational conditions, classical numerical optimization is still necessary.