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Abstract
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.