Preparative Isolation and Purification of Four Compounds from Chinese Medicinal Herb Gentiana Scabra Bunge by High‐Speed Countercurrent Chromatography

High‐speed countercurrent chromatography (HSCCC) was applied to the separation and purification of 8‐hydroxy‐10‐hydrosweroside, swertiamarin, and trifloroside from the Chinese medicinal herb Gentiana scabra Bunge. Fifty milligrams of crude extracts were separated using n‐hexane‐1‐butanol‐methanol‐0.4% acetic acid in water (1.4:8:3:15.5, v/v) as the two‐phase solvent system yielding 8 mg of 8‐hydroxy‐10‐hydrosweroside, 18 mg of swertiamarin, 11 mg of trifloroside, and 4 mg of an unknown compound with the purity of 96.7, 98.4, 97.1, and 96.2%, respectively, in a one step separation. The chemical structures of these components were identified by ESI‐MS.