Extraction of natural traditional Chinese medicine pilot scale-up process
Natural Chinese medicine extractionPilot scale-up process characteristics: Pilot scale-up is a transitional research work from small test to industrial production, which is crucial to whether the small test process can successfully enter large-scale production. These studies are carried out around how to improve yield, improve operation, and improve quality to form production. The ultimate goal of a process research project is to be adopted in production. Therefore, when the laboratory research work reaches a certain stage, pilot scale-up should be considered to verify the feasibility of the laboratory process route.
1. Transition testing of raw and auxiliary material specifications
In the small test, the specifications of raw and auxiliary materials are generally higher, in order to eliminate the adverse effects of impurities contained in the raw materials, so as to ensure the accuracy of the experimental results. However, when the process route is determined and the process conditions are further investigated, the transition test should be carried out with raw and auxiliary materials easily available in large-scale production as much as possible.
2. Equipment selection and material quality testing
In the pilot stage, most of the experiments are carried out in small glass instruments, but in industrial production, the materials must come into contact with various equipment materials, such as microbial fermentation tanks, cell culture tanks, and filtration, concentration, crystallization, and drying equipment for product post-processing. Sometimes a certain material has a great impact on a certain reaction, and even makes the entire reaction impossible. Therefore, during the pilot test, the quality of the equipment materials and the selection of equipment should be tested to provide data for industrial production.
3. Reaction conditions limit experiment
Reaction condition limit test can find the most suitable process conditions, generally have a license range. Some reactions have strict requirements on process conditions, and after exceeding a certain limit, it will cause significant losses, such as deactivation of bioactive substances or exceeding the capacity of equipment, causing accidents. In this case, the limit test of process conditions should be carried out to fully grasp the reaction law.
4. Research on raw and auxiliary materials, intermediates and product quality analysis methods
In the study of natural product extraction technology, there are many raw and auxiliary materials, especially intermediates and new products, which have no ready-made analytical methods. Therefore, it is necessary to study their identification methods in order to formulate simple, easy, accurate and reliable inspection methods. For example, when extracting astragalus polysaccharides from general manufacturers, quality analysis of raw and auxiliary materials is required, which is also the reason for choosing authentic medicinal materials.
5. Research on downstream processes
In the extraction process of natural products, the research content of biological material resource production as the core belongs to the upstream process, and the operation of product post-treatment as the research content is the downstream process. Although the upstream process is very important, such as gene cloning, cell fusion, microbial culture, etc., it is the source of natural product extraction and production, but the downstream process includes product extraction, separation, purification, mother liquor treatment, solvent recovery and other biochemical engineering operations must also be taken seriously. Because this is the key to the yield, quality and economic benefits of the product. Therefore, it is necessary to study the downstream process operation as simplified as possible, and adopt new processes, new technologies and new equipment to improve labor productivity and reduce costs.
