Liquid–liquid/solid three‐phase high‐speed counter‐current chromatography, a new technique for separation of polyphenols from G eranium wilfordii M axim

High‐speed counter‐current chromatography using a new liquid–liquid/solid three‐phase system was used for the separation of the polyphenols corilagin and geraniin from a crude extract of G eranium wilfordii M axim in one step. The optimized three‐phase system was composed of n ‐hexane/ethyl acetate/methanol/acetic acid/water and to which was added 10‐μm average diameter microspheres of cross‐linked 12% agarose at the ratio of 0.2:10:2:1:5 and 0.1 g/mL, respectively. The purities of geraniin and corilagin were 82 and 90%, which were determined by HPLC at 280 nm. A 14.5 and 7 mg of geraniin and corilagin were purified from 160 mg crude extract with the yields of 70 and 78%, respectively.