Abstract
The main product of acetylation of ferrocene was successfully separated and purified with high purity from synthetic mixtures by countercurrent chromatography using a selected biphasic solvent system. According to distribution performance of main product and reactant, a two-phase solvent system was selected by thin layer chromatography, in which the partition coefficient for each component was determined by HPLC. Then a two-phase solvent system consisting of petroleum ether/ethyl acetate/methanol/water (6:4:6:4, v/v) was selected. After acetylation reaction, 20 mg of synthetic mixture was subjected to countercurrent chromatography, yielding 2.1 mg of ferrocene and 8.7 mg of acetyl ferrocene with 96.6% and 97.4% purity. Results indicated that countercurrent chromatography is a very efficient method for separation and purification of target product from synthetic mixtures.
GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT