Abstract:

Phosphatidylcholine (PC) was purified from soybean lecithin powder by ethanol extraction and aluminum column
chromatography. After the extraction, the purity and yield of PC were 62.00% and 31.94%, respectively. The influence of
important chromatographic parameters such as stationary phase, ethanol concentration, loading amount, solid-to-liquid ratio,
and elution flow rate on separation efficiency was investigated. Highly purified PC with a purity of 94.52% and a yield of
83.71% was obtained under the optimized conditions: alumina powder (100–200 mesh) as the stationary phase, elution with
90% ethanol at a flow rate of 3.0 mL/min, loading amount of 1 g/30 g, and solid-to-liquid ratio of 1:12 (g/mL). This study
will hopefully provide technical support and data for industrial production of PC.

Key words: phosphatidylcholine, column chromatography, aluminum, soybean lecithin powder