Separation and purification of both tea seed polysaccharide and saponin from camellia cake extract using macroporous resin

A novel method to separate and purify tea seed polysaccharide and tea seed saponin from camellia cake extract by macroporous resin was developed. Among four kinds of resins (AB‐8, NKA‐9, XDA‐6, and D4020) tested, AB‐8 macroporous resin possessed optimal separating capacity for the two substances and thus was selected for the separation, in which deionized water was used to elute tea seed polysaccharide, 0.25% NaOH solution to remove the undesired pigments, and 90% ethanol to elute tea seed saponin. Further dynamic adsorption/desorption experiments on AB‐8 resin‐based column chromatography were conducted to obtain the optimal parameters. Under optimal dynamic adsorption and desorption conditions, 18.7 and 11.8% yield of tea seed polysaccharide and tea seed saponin were obtained with purities of 89.2 and 96.0%, respectively. The developed method provides a potential approach for the large‐scale production of tea seed polysaccharide and tea seed saponin from camellia cake.