Developments of instruments and methods related with high-speed countercurrent chromatography and their applications in research of natural medicines

Abstract High-speed countercurrent chromatography (HSCCC) is a liquid-liquid separation chromatographic technique which uses no solid supporting medium. During its rapid development in the last 30 years, great progress has been made in the instrumentation, the basic study and application of HSCCC. It has significant advantages over other instrumental separation techniques, in its high efficiency and continuous processing capability. In recent years, HSCCC has been widely used in research and development of natural medicines and functional foods, including preparative separation, fingerprint analysis and screening of bioactive constituents. A review of the technique is presented in this paper.