Separation of glycyrrhizic acid from licorice root extract using macroporous resin

Glycyrrhizic acid (GA) is the major active ingredient of licorice which has many pharmacological activities. In the present study, separation of GA from licorice root extract has been carried out by adsorption on five different macroporous resins. Static and dynamic adsorption of GA from crude licorice root extract is studied on ion exchange resins followed by desorption. Indion 810 shows the maximum adsorption as well as desorption capacity. The adsorption experiments indicate that equilibrium can be achieved in 360 min. The adsorption equilibrium data is well fitted in the Langmuir isotherm. The separation process is optimized by investigating the effect of pH on adsorption capacity and effect of concentration of ethanol on desorption capacity. The dynamic adsorption is carried out in a column packed with Indion 810 resin and effect of feed flow rate and initial concentration of GA in extract has been studied. The results showed that increase in feed flow rate as well as initial feed concentration of GA lowers the dynamic binding capacity and mass transfer coefficient while increases the HETP. The purity of GA is increased from 14.3% to 71.5% by the dynamic desorption with 60% ethanol. Indion 810 resin can efficiently separate GA from licorice root extract with the HPLC recovery of 63.6%. This study forms the basis for large scale preparation of GA by resin adsorption.