A highly hyphenated preparative method with emulsion liquid membrane extraction-in situ magnetization-magnetic separation for bioactive constituents from typical medicinal plant

Abstract A new emulsion liquid membrane extraction-in situ magnetization-magnetic separation (ELME-ISM-MS) method was developed to extract, separate and recover various compounds (alkaloids, flavonoid and saccharides) from Mahonia bealeias (Fort.) Carr. in a hyphenated way for the first time. Stable water-in-oil-in-water emulsion was prepared in developed circumstances; then water-soluble compounds (e.g. berberine hydrochloride) remained in feed phase; other compounds with weaker polarity entered into the membrane phase, and the lipid-soluble alkaloids (e.g. tetrahydroberberine) reacted with the derivatization reagents of FeCl3 and HCl in the internal phase for subsequent magnetic separation. Phase behaviors, transmembrane process and separation mechanism were all investigated systematically. Such a continuous, highly-efficient and low consumed multifunctional process can benefit sustainable preparation of natural products, which realized extraction, enrichment, separation, purification and recovery simultaneously; the yields of berberine, tetrahydroberberine, rutin and polysaccharides were 67.78, 1.40, 12.58 and 9.88 mg/g, separately.