initial characterization of crude extracts from phyllanthus amarus

Validation of the Optimal Extraction Solvent
The plants from geographical location PD (Saramacca-Damboentong) were used
to produce optimized powder extracts of P. amarus, since plants from this location had
eluted the most and widest variety of fractions/compounds in the crude plant extracts
(Tables 4.1- 4.3).
Figure 4.1: Fractions eluted from P. amarus extract with mobile phase
CHCl3/MeOH= 7:3 and detected by UV-254 nm and PMA reagent
Although the mobile phase chloroform/methanol 95:5 gave good separation and
eluted the most compounds (Tables 4.1-4.7), this mobile phase turned out to be
unsuitable for the elution of the fractions/compounds in powder extracts. Therefore, a
trial and error was done with mobile phase 5:5; 7:3; and 9:1 in order to find the optimal
mobile phase for the powder extract of P. amarus. Chloroform/methanol 7:3 turned out to
be the most suitable mobile phase, based on the separation and the number of compounds
eluted (Figure 4.1 and Table 4.9).
When comparing (Table 4.9) the powder extract of P. amarus dissolved in
methanol and the crude methanol extract with each other, there were fewer fractions in
the powder than in the crude methanol extract. The missing fractions (probably 4, 5 and
6) may have been removed during Liquid Phase Extraction (LPE), since chlorophyll and
38
B1= Powder extract dissolved in
50% MeOH in H2O
Bp= P. amarus crude extract
B2= Powder extract dissolved in
99% MeOH