Preparative separation of grape skin polyphenols by high-speed counter-current chromatography

•Grape skin polyphenols were first separated according to increasing polarity by HSCCC.•A series of grape skin polyphenols not commercially available were largely prepared.•The proposed method would be applied to prepare other plant polyphenols.

To develop an efficient method for large preparation of various individual polyphenols from white grape skins (Fernão Pires; Vitis vinifera) by preparative high-speed counter-current chromatography (HSCCC) and preparative-HPLC, an optimized preparative HSCCC condition with two-phase solvent system composed of Hex-EtOAc-H2O (1:50:50, v/v) was used to separate grape skin polyphenols into various fractions. Both the tail-head and head-tail elution modes were used with a flow rate of 3.0 ml/min and a rotary speed of 950 rpm. Afterwards, a preparative-HPLC separation was applied to isolate individual polyphenols in each of the fractions from HSCCC. Total of 7 fractions (Fraction A to G) were obtained from grape skin extract by HSCCC. After preparative-HPLC isolation, fifteen individual compounds were obtained, most of which presented high yields and purity (all over 90%). The HSCCC method followed with preparative-HPLC appeared to be convenient and economical, constituting an efficient strategy for the isolation of grape skin polyphenols.