Separation of acetins by counter-current chromatography

In this work we report the purification of a crude acetin mixture into mono‐, di‐ and triacetin by countercurrent chromatography. The process was initially tested on a small, semi‐preparative scale (0.5 g) to determine its efficiency. The process was then scaled up to accommodate 2.5 g of crude reaction products containing a mixture of the acetins. The solvent system ethyl acetate/n‐butanol/water 1:0.2:1 was used in all separation procedures. Mono‐, di‐ and triacetins were separated similarly in the semi‐preparative and preparative runs.