An article entitled “Rapid and high-throughput purification of salvianolic acid B from Salvia miltiorrhiza Bunge by high-performance counter-current chromatography” that appeared in the same JCA volume (1216) as the CCC/CPC special issue brings out some interesting aspects of result reporting associated with CCC/CPC separations.

Salvianolic acid B appears to be a popular TCM target since previous CCC separations are found in five articles. The authors report sample mass loading (1500 mg), mass recovery (475 mg), and product purity (96.1%). The authors also report on the % recovery (42.8%): an often ignored factor which indicates not only the sample loss due to the separation method but how much “peak shaving” was done to attain the desired purity. They go the extra mile by reporting four additional results in the form of process throughput (Pt), process efficiency (Pe), process environmental risk factor (Er), and general process evaluation factor (Ge). According to simple Google searches, the first two factors are very generally used in various business applications, the second two factors seem to be fairly novel terms not currently used in any context. Process throughput reporting may accentuate the high-throughput nature of CCC under optimized sample loading conditions. Process environmental risk factor reporting may emphasize the fact that CCC/CPC is a low organic solvent consumption method especially under optimized sample loading. It is not clear, however, that every reported CCC/CPC separation has been sample loading optimized. Neither is it evident if these parameters take into account sample preparation and attempts to recover additional product(s) from multiple chromatographic runs.

I am an advocate of reporting on results that promote consistency and present CCC/CPC in a favorable light. However, I would find it more interesting to compare CCC/CPC separations with other competing chromatographic methods such as prep-HPLC, flash column chromatography, etc…