Studies on the extraction of paeonol by steam distillation

Cortex Moutan is the stem and root of Paeonia suffruticosa Andr that belongs to the paeoniaceae family. It is the effective component of many traditional Chinese medicines. Paeonol is the effective component of Cortex Moutan. It is proved that in modern medicine paeonol has a variety of effects. It has been widely used in medicine, incense and chemistry. In the experiment, steam distillation was used to extract Paeonol from Cortex Moutan. The result showed it can obviously increase the distilling rate by adding sodium sulfate and prolonging the time of soaking Cortex Moutan.