Purification of coenzyme Q10 from fermentation extract: High-speed counter-current chromatography versus silica gel column chromatography

High-speed counter-current chromatography (HSCCC) is applied to the purification of coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10) for the first time. CoQ10 was obtained from a fermentation broth extract. A non-aqueous two-phase solvent system composed of heptane–acetonitrile–dichloromethane (12:7:3.5, v/v/v) was selected by analytical HSCCC and used for purification of CoQ10 from 500 mg of the crude extract. The separation yielded 130 mg of CoQ10 at an HPLC purity of over 99%. The overall results of the present studies show the advantages of HSCCC over an alternative of silica gel chromatography followed by recrystallization. These advantages extend to higher purity (97.8% versus 93.3%), recovery (88% versus 74.3%) and yield (26.4% versus 23.4%). An effort to avoid the toxic, expensive solvent CH2Cl2 was unsuccessful, but at least its percentage is low in the solvent system.