Extraction And Separation Of Paeoniflorin & Albiflorin From Radix Paeoniae Rubra

Radix Paeoniae Rubra is one kind of Chinese traditional medicine. Peaoniflorin and Albiflorin are important active components in Radix Paeoniae Rubra, each of which has unique pharmacological value. In this paper, the crude extract was firstly obtained from Radix Paeoniae Rubra by solvent extraction. The extract conditions including liquid-solid ratio, extraction solvent, extraction time and extraction temperature were optimized by orthogonal design, uniform design and spherical symmetric design, respectively. Then, the mixture of Paeoniflorin and albiflorin was separated by macroporous resin from the crude extract, the separation results were compared using two types of resin, AB-8 and D101. The eluent and elution volume were also selected. Paeoniflorin and albiflorin were further purified by simulated moving bed chromatography(SMBC). Switching time, the mobile phase, elution flow rate, and other parameters were selected, and the operation stability of SMB was investigated. Experimental results showed that the optimized extracting conditions were as follows: methanol concentration 90%, liquid-solid ratio 10～12, extraction time 180min, extraction temperature 40℃. The gradient elution was used in the separation of the two components by D101 resin, elution program was deionized water (2170mL) -20% methanol in water (1250mL) -60% methanol in water (980mL) - Pure methanol (700mL). The mixture of Paeoniflorin and Albiflorin was finally separated by simulated moving bed, and the main process parameters were as follows: four chromatographic column (ID×L = 1.0×20.0cm), stationary phase was 20μm ODS packing; mobile phase was methanol: water =3:7(V/V); eluent flow rate 2.0mL/min; purging flow rate 4.0 mL/min; injection flow rate 0.1mL/min; feed concentration 0.1g/mL; switching time 25 min; operating at room temperature. Under the above conditions, the mixture was separated by SMB, and more than 92% and 90% content of Paeoniflorin and Albiflorin were obtained, respectively. The SMB separation process was stable.