Abstract
The article summarizes a systematic process design for the extraction and purification of artemisinin from annual mugwort (Artemisia annua L.). Artemisinin serves as an anti-malaria drug, therefore, resource-efficient and economic processes for its production are needed. The process design was based on lab-scale experiments and afterwards piloted on miniplant-scale at the institute. In this part of the article, a detailed economic feasibility studies including a reference process as a benchmark the lab-scale process and the pilot-scale process is given. Relevant differences between the different scales are discussed. The details of the respective unit operations (solid-liquid extraction, liquid-liquid extraction, chromatography and crystallization) are presented in dedicated articles. The study showed that even miniaturized lab-scale experiments are able to deliver data detailed enough for scale-up calculations on a theoretical basis. To our knowledge, a comparable systematic process design and piloting was never performed by academia before.
Highlights
The demand for natural derived products is still growing [1,2]
One example is the anti-cancer drug Paclitaxel® which is produced by semi-synthesis from the precursor 10-deacetylbaccatin III, that is found in the needles of European yew (Taxus baccata L.)
The process design originates from a lab-scale process development based on the complex plant extract as the feed
Summary
The demand for natural derived products is still growing [1,2]. Among others, they are used as highly purified products derived from plant extracts for the treatment of various diseases. Annual operating costs amount to €8.4 extraction and purification of artemisinin, synthesis was investigated. In addition toisolation the shown effort was put intosolvents new, or to rather enhanced, efficiency of the solid-liquid extraction step Real to find potential candidates and performed efficiency of the solid-liquid extraction step The screening included even non-conventional solvents in terms ofand solidthe characteristics of the plant material optimization of extraction is always a multi-parameter have been investigated; whole processes and value chains single unit operations in the downstream of artemisinin have been assessed [22]. Costly unit operations, such as chromatography, benefit from that investigation because not all substances have to be separated, but the right ones
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