Preparative high-performance liquid chromatography on chemically modified porous glass. Isolation of saponins from ginseng.

Preparative high-performance liquid chromatography on octadecylsilyl porous glass (pore size, 550 A) with acetonitrile-water as the mobile phase was applied for the isolation of saponins from Panax ginseng. In a single run, several milligrams of pure ginsenosides were obtained from 10 g of roots of Panax ginseng. The method was simple, rapid and convenient and should be applicable to isolation of other saponins of crude drugs.