Revista de Processamento e Tecnologia de Alimentos

Abstrato

Characterization of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) Extract: Chemical Compositions, Solution Environment and its Implication in Membrane Process

Wenwei Zhong1, Liwei Guo2*, Haoran Zeng2

Membrane technology has been widely employed in beverages processing for clarification, water removal, and aroma recovery. Its application in pharmaceutical processing has been reported in some case studies of TCM manufacturing. Membrane technology has shown superior advantages on retaining active compounds with integrity in TCM extracts. Comprehensive studies revealed that the compositions in TCM extracts could influence the physiochemical properties and solution environment, potentially causing undesirable effects on downstream processing. This review introduced modern analytical methods to the quantification of herbal and TCM extracts, including chromatography and spectroscopy for the quantification of composition and total composition comparison by fingerprints. The performance of membrane technology is largely dependent on the solution environment and the interactions between compounds whereas the characterization approaches currently available for membrane processing are insufficient. The review also underlined recent attempts via the aid of modern analytical approaches on the characterization of the solution environment, correlating compositions, physiochemical properties with membrane performance, facilitating qualitative and quantitative description tools for process optimization.