Sinomenine Purification by Continuous Liquid-Liquid Extraction Process with Centrifugal Extractors

Abstract

Continuous manufacturing is considered as one of the future trends of pharmaceutical engineering. In this work, continuous liquid-liquid extraction for sinomenine purification was realized with the usage of centrifugal extractors. Chloroform was used as the extractant because of the high distribution coefficient (>100). Higher extraction ratio can be obtained when using the centrifugal extractor of Model CWL50-N. The extraction ratio of the second-stage extraction was higher than that of the first-stage extraction. The extraction ratio of the second-stage countercurrent extraction was higher than that of second-stage cross-flow extraction. When chloroform phase was recycled for liquid-liquid extraction, the extraction ratio was also higher than 95%. This work can also be an example of continuous liquid-liquid extraction for the separation of other Chinese medicine components.