Separation and purification of cardol, cardanol and anacardic acid from cashew (Anacardium occidentale L.) nut-shell liquid using a simple two-step column chromatography

• Use a two-step column chromatography to purify long chain phenols.
• Obtain anacardic acid, cardol and cardanol with 98.79 to 99.34% purity.
• Anacardic acid, cardol and cardanol purified are of saturated form.

Long chain phenols contained in cashew nut shell liquid have important applications. Anacardic acids and cardols are extensively used in the pharmaceutical industry, while cardanols find use in resins, coating and polymer industries. In this work, a two-step reversed-phase silica gel column chromatography was employed to purify these major phenols in cashew nut shell liquid (CNSL). 6-Pentadecyl salicylic acid (C22H36O3, 98.8% purity and 82.4% recovery), 5-pentadecyl resorcinol (C21H36O2, 99.3% purity and 80.7% recovery) and 3-pentadecyl phenol (C21H36O, 99.2% purity and 81.8% recovery) were successfully obtained and identified by 1H and 13C NMR, FTIR, mass spectrometry and elemental analysis.