Preparation of Chlorophylls and Pheophytins by Isocratic Liquid Chromatography

Article abstract of DOI:10.1021/ac00266a030

Isocratic high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) with silica gel as a stationary phase provides a powerful means for rapid preparative isolation (on a 20-50 mg level) of chlorophylls (a, a', b, and b') and pheophytins (a, a', b, and b').The purity and identity of the isolated pigments have been confirmed by complete elemental analyses and analytical HPLC; the purity levels were 99.9, 99.5, 99.5, 99.4, 95, 91, 99.5, and 85percent for chlorophyll a, a', b, and b' and pheophytin a, a', b, and b', respectively, with the sole impurities being almost totally the corresponding epimers.UV-visible spectrometric data (in diethyl ether, acetone, and benzene) and CD spectra (in benzene) of the purified pigments are presented.