MS-guided purification of piperine by CPC or flash chromatography: A comparative study

Centrifugal partition chromatography (CPC) and flash chromatography play a crucial role in the study and discovery of natural products. However, they also represent a significant part of manufacturing and environmental costs (high solvent consumption and solid waste generation). In this study, both techniques were evaluated at laboratory and pilot scales for the purification of piperine. The performance of the two methods was compared using four reference points: purity, yield, solvent consumption, and injected quantity. The isolation process was monitored using mass spectrometry (MS) to maximize the recovery of piperine. Results highlight CPC at both scales due to its capacity to get higher purity than flash chromatography. Benefits of CPC also include larger injection capacity, lower total solvent consumption, and no solid waste to treat. Finally, this work clearly emphasizes CPC as a technique of choice to purify compounds with a limited solvent consumption.