Preparative separation of gallocatechin gallate from Camellia ptilophylla using macroporous resins followed by sephadex LH-20 column chromatography

•The main alkaloid and catechins were TB and GCG in Cocoa tea.•XAD-7HP and LH-20 gel were developed for extraction and separation of GCG.•We also could obtain high quality of TB, EGC and tea polysaccharide.

Gallocatechin gallate (GCG) possesses multiple potential biological activities. However, the content of GCG in traditional green tea is too low which limits its in-depth pharmacological research and application. In the present study, a simple, efficient and environment-friendly chromatographic separation method was developed for preparative enrichment and separation of GCG from cocoa tea (Camellia ptilophylla) which contains high content of GCG. In the first step, the adsorption properties of selected resins were evaluated, and XAD-7HP resin was chosen by its adsorption and desorption properties for GCG. In order to maximize column efficiency for GCG collection, the operating parameters (e.g., flow rate, ethanol concentration, and bed height) were optimized. We found that the best combination was the feed concentration at 20 mg/mL, flow rate at 0.75 BV/h and the ratio of diameter to bed heights as 1:12. Under these conditions, the purity of GCG was 45% with a recovery of 89%. In order to obtain pure target, a second step was established using column chromatography with sephadex LH-20 gel and 55% ethanol–water solution as eluent. After this step, the purity of the GCG was 91% with a recovery of 68% finally.