The application of macroporous resins in the separation of licorice flavonoids and glycyrrhizic acid

Glycyrrhizic acid (GA) and licorice flavonoids (LF) are the two classes of bioactive components in licorice with known pharmacological effects. But long-term excessive intake of GA may cause sodium retention and hypertension. In this study, the performance and adsorption characteristics of four widely used macroporous resins for the separation of deglycyrrhizinated, flavonoids enriched licorice has been critically evaluated. The sorption and desorption properties of LF and GA on macroporous resins including XDA-1, LSA-10, D101 and LSA-20 have been compared. The adsorption capacity was found to depend strongly on the pH of the feed solution. XDA-1 offers much higher adsorption capacity for GA and LF than other resins, and its adsorption data fit the best to the Freundlich isotherm. XDA-1 also shows much higher adsorption affinity towards LF than that of GA based on calculated results from the measured adsorption isotherms. Dynamic adsorption and desorption experiments have been carried out on a XDA-1 resin packed column to obtain optimal parameters for separating GA and LF. An enriched LF extract (about 21.9% purity) free of GA, and an enriched GA extract with 66% purity can be separated from crude licorice extract in one run.