A New Method for Preparative Separation and Purification of Ellagic Acid Employing PH-Gradient Counter-Current Chromatography

Reversed-phase pH gradient thin-layer chromatography of biologically active substances with controlled developing solvent velocity

For the first time, stepwise pH gradient thin-layer chromatograms of biologically active substances with controlled developing solvent velocity are presented and described in the paper. Change in buffer pH of the mobile phase solution influences retardation, selectivity, and shape of the separated substances' spots. The conducted research has confirmed that the mobile phase's pH gradient could be an essential factor to optimize the conditions of the separation of substances in reversed-phase high-performance thin-layer chromatography. The reproducibility of the gradient retardation factor values of separated substance zones is satisfactory.

Preparative separation of flavone dimers from Dysosma versipellis by counter-current chromatography: Trifluoroacetic acid as a solvent system modifier

The separation of natural products is grueling and time-consuming work with repeated isolations needed to obtain purified compounds. However, using counter-current chromatography, a unique liquid-liquid partition chromatography, constituents can usually be purified efficiently. During the separation of flavone dimers from Dysosma versipellis (Hance) by counter-current chromatography, the separation resolution and sample loading was impeded by the emulsification of the sample. By screening, trifluoroacetic acid was selected as the solvent modifier to eliminate the emulsification. Then, a quaternary solvent system of hexane/ethyl acetate/methanol/water (4:6:5:5 v/v/v/v) with trifluoroacetic acid at a low concentration of 0.5% v/v was used to purify the components from D. versipellis. Compared to that without trifluoroacetic acid, the separation resolution as well as the sample loading both increased greatly. In addition, flavone dimers in low concentrations could be enriched and purified at high sample loading. As a result, five podophyllotoxins and 11 flavonoids were purified and characterized by interpretation of spectroscopic data, in which two of eight flavone dimers were new and a known flavone dimer was first separated from this species.