Extraction of Reserpine from Rauwolfia vomitoria with Acidic Ethanol

This paper studied the extraction of reserpine from Rauwolfia vomitoria with acidic ethanol.Various factors that would affect extraction of reserpine were investigated respectively by single factor method.The content of reserpine was determined by HPLC.The suitable extraction conditions were as follows:0.025 M H2SO4 containing 50% ethanol was used as extraction solvent,the volume of which was 10 times of the weight of Rauwolfia vomitoria.Extraction was undergone for three times and lasted for 1 h each time during stirring at room temperature and under darkness.The extraction yield reached 0.72‰.The extraction method with acidic ethanol uses less organic solvents,makes less environment contamination and achieves higher extraction yield than common extraction with benzene.This method would be applied to production in future.