Separating a Terpene Trilactone from Ginkgo Biloba Plant
The Ginkgo biloba extract is subjected to column chromatography with an appropriate solvent system and treated with a suitable eluent. The resulting solution is alkylated to isolate the individual terpene trilactones.
The method is efficient for large-scale isolation of ginkgolides as phytopharmaceuticals without resorting to preparative reversed- phase HPLC or other expensive procedures.