Two-dimensional multi-heart cutting centrifugal partition chromatography-liquid chromatography for the preparative isolation of antioxidants from Edelweiss plant

•Leontopodic acid A and 3,5-dicaffeoylquinic acid, two antioxidants from Edelweiss plant, were isolated by 2D CPC-LC.•Comprehensive CPCxHPLC analysis of plant was set up at laboratory scale to provide 2D plot and select the interesting CPC and HPLC fractions.•Off-line multi-heart cutting CPC-LC separation was transferred at industrial scale.

The Edelweiss plant has been recognized as a very valuable source of anti-aging principles due to its composition of antioxidants compounds: leontopodic acid A and 3,5-dicaffeoylquinic acid. In this work, off-line multi-heart cutting CPC-LC separation was set up at industrial scale in order to isolate and produce new high quality reference material of these two antioxidants from Edelweiss. For this purpose, CPC and HPLC methods were developed and optimized at laboratory scale and a comprehensive CPCxHPLC analysis of the crude extract was established. Thereby, the CPC method led to a first separation of the target compounds according to their partition coefficient in the solvent system and the HPLC method was performed on the recovered fractions to lead to a second separation. A 2D CPCxHPLC plot was established in order to know the fractions to select at the industrial scale. Then, the CPC and HPLC methods were transferred at industrial scale and the multi-heart cutting CPC-LC was performed in off-line mode. Using CPC with methyl ter-butyl ether-water 1:1 (v/v) solvent system and LC with Denali C18 column, 2 g of crude extract sample were injected and leontopodic acid A and 3,5-dicaffeoylquinic acid were recovered with purity over 97%. The compounds were identified by MS and NMR.