I want to isolate curcumin from the commercial crude curcuminoid mixture. However, the poor solubility of curcumin makes it difficult to purify by column chromatography. What are the best conditions? Should I just load my column with a very large volume of solution????

Thanks

Welcome on board Scientist Solutions,
I will try to find the answer for you in the next few days.
Guy

Thanks Guy, for offering to help. In the meantime, here is a reference that might help:

http://www.springerlink.com/content/p240n72u17644n57/fulltext.html#CR20

"Curcuminoids purified from turmeric powder modulate the function of human multidrug resistance protein 1 (ABCC1)."

Cancer Chemother Pharmacol. 2006 Feb;57(3):376-88. Epub 2005 Jul 14.

* Chearwae W,* Wu CP, * Chu HY,* Lee TR,* Ambudkar SV, * Limtrakul P.

Extraction and isolation of curcuminoids from the methods section:
"turmeric powder was successively extracted with 95% ethanol at room temperature, then precipitated with petroleum ether to yield crude curcumin mixture consisted of 78% curcumin I, 16% curcumin II, and 5% curcumin III. The crude mixture was then fractionated by silica gel 60 column chromatography using first CHCl3 and then CHCl3/methanol with increasing polarity to isolate pure fractions of curcumins I, II, and III. The identity and purity of each curcuminoids were verified using by TLC, HPLC, IR, MS, and NMR analysis."