Profile

A founder of pilot-scale processes for extracting chlorogenic acid from Eucommia leaves.

Story

Ma Xihan is a professor at the College of Life Sciences, Northwest A&F University, and one of the founders of research on extracting active components from Eucommia leaves in China. In 2001, together with Wei Qin and Jing Qianping, he systematically studied the extraction process conditions for chlorogenic acid from Eucommia leaves, determining through single-factor and orthogonal experiments the optimal process - whole leaves, 40% ethanol, 80 degrees C, solid-to-liquid ratio 1:16, extracted for 2 hours - providing baseline data for the industrial extraction of chlorogenic acid from Eucommia leaves.

In 2003 he further completed the pilot-scale trial of extracting chlorogenic acid from Eucommia leaves, establishing a complete process flow of 'ethanol extraction - water transfer dissolution - lead salt precipitation - ethyl acetate extraction - recrystallization' and obtaining pure chlorogenic acid of 98.35% purity, while discovering that Eucommia leaves contain no isochlorogenic acid. His research on separation by macroporous adsorption resin screened out the XDA-5 resin and matching elution parameters, achieving 36.65% chlorogenic acid and 28.34% total flavonoid content - opening an engineering pathway for the high-value utilization of Eucommia leaves.

Milestones

• From 2001 to 2003, successively published research on the extraction process and pilot-scale production of chlorogenic acid from Eucommia leaves in Chemistry and Industry of Forest Products
• As a member of Zhang Kangjian's Eucommia team at Northwest A&F University, has long conducted research on Eucommia active components

Key Contributions

• In 2003, completed the pilot-scale trial of extracting chlorogenic acid from Eucommia leaves, obtaining pure chlorogenic acid of 98.35% purity with an average yield of 0.53% (published in Chemistry and Industry of Forest Products)
• In 2001, determined the optimal extraction process for chlorogenic acid from Eucommia leaves - whole leaves, 40% ethanol, 80 degrees C for 2 hours - laying the process foundation
• Screened out the XDA-5 macroporous adsorption resin for separating chlorogenic acid and total flavonoids from Eucommia leaves, establishing a column chromatography purification process
• Discovered that Eucommia leaves contain no isochlorogenic acid, correcting the understanding of Eucommia leaf composition
• In 1997, presented research on the effects of different processing methods on the active-component content of Eucommia leaves at the First International Symposium on Eucommia