Periodic peristalsis enhanced artemisinin extraction in high solids of Artemisia annua

Artemisinin extracted at low solid loading causes low product concentration and high organic solvent usage. In this study, extraction in high solids of Artemisia annua by periodic peristalsis was proposed to increase the concentration of artemisinin and improve the extraction efficiency. The results showed that the artemisinin yield, extracted from leaves of Artemisia annua , increased by 33.9 %–46.5 % in periodic peristalsis extraction (PPE) compared with hot maceration extraction (HME). Based on the lower T2 relaxation time and the higher peak height of pools of solvent, periodic peristalsis could enhance solvent penetration effectively in porous media. Additionally, since the properties of capillary solvent were highly related to the diffusion coefficient (Pearson correlation coefficient > 0.98), periodic peristalsis improved the diffusion coefficient mainly by promoting the penetration of capillary solvent, which resulted in an increase in high solids extraction efficiency. Therefore, periodic peristalsis treatment could be an effective technology to improve natural product extraction performance in high solids.