High performance liquid chromatography of natural products. I. Separation of cephalosporin C derivatives and cephalosporin antibiotics; isolation of cephalosporin C from fermentation broth.

Microbonded propylamine silica with a solvent system containing acetic acid, methanol, acetonitrile and water (2:4:7.5:86.5) is suitable for an efficient separation of mixtures containing several closely related cephem derivatives. The same system with preparative columns was used for the isolation of cephalosporin C directly from the filtered broth of C. acremonium fermentation.