Centrifugal partition chromatography at industrial-scale: concept, instrumentation and applications

Centrifugal partition chromatography (CPC) is a liquid-liquid preparative chromatographic technique, where both the stationary and the mobile phases are liquids and separation is based on the partitioning of the solutes between these immiscible liquid phases. In the realization of this purification technique, series of cells interconnected by ducts are attached to a large rotor and filled with the liquid stationary phase, which is immobilized inside the rotor by a strong centrifugal force. The other phase of the two-phase system is used as the mobile phase containing the sample to be purified: it is fed under pressure into the rotor and pumped through the stationary phase in the form of tiny droplets.
CPC has been widely used for decades in academia for the laboratory-scale isolation of natural products, however, the limited number of available instrumentations and the lack of efficient solvent recycling solutions hindered its application at industrial-scale. In this presentation we give a brief overview on the development and application of a fully automated industrial-scale CPC platform with integrated biphasic liquid system preparation and solvent recycling units. Efficiency and sustainability of this novel chromatographic platform are demonstrated on Cannabis-related purification topics, such as the isolation of cannabidiol (CBD) or the removal of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) from hemp oil.