Adsorption properties and preparative separation of phenylethanoid glycosides from Cistanche deserticola by use of macroporous resins

• A simple and efficient method for large-scale preparative separation of phenylethanoid glycosides from Cistanche deserticola.
• Eight kinds of macroporous resins were tested and HPD300 was found best for phenylethanoid glycosides purification.
• The purity of total phenylethanoid glycosides in the product was 76.58%.
• The equilibrium adsorption data of HPD300 were fitted to the Freundlich isotherm.
• The breakthrough curves showed that acteoside had a higher affinity to the resin than echinacoside.

A simple and efficient chromatographic method for large-scale preparative separation of phenylethanoid glycosides (mainly contain echinacoside and acteoside) from Cistanche deserticola was developed. The adsorption properties of eight macroporous resins were evaluated. Three selected resins were further screened depending on the adsorption kinetics curves, in which HPD300 resin showed the best separation efficiency. The adsorption isotherm data on HPD300 resin were fitted to the Freundlich equation in certain concentration range. The dynamic adsorption and desorption experiments were carried out on columns packed with HPD300 resin to optimize the separation process. The breakthrough curves showed that acteoside had a higher affinity to the resin than echinacoside. The contents of echinacoside and acteoside in the product increased from 1.79% and 1.43% in the crude extracts to 16.66% and 15.17%, with recovery yields of 80.41% and 90.17%, respectively. The purity of total phenylethanoid glycosides in the product was 76.58%.