Cronicon OPEN ACCESS EC NUTRITION Research Article Harmine Isolation and Purification by a New Design of Silica Gel Column Chromatography Huda Elgubbi 1 *, Ghaith SG Haith 2 and Marwa Balto 1 1 Department of Botany, Misurata University, Libya 2 Department of Chemistry, Misurata University, Libya *Corresponding Author: Huda Elgubbi, Department of Botany, University of Misurata, Libya. Citation: Huda Elgubbi., et al. “Harmine Isolation and Purification by a New Design of Silica Gel Column Chromatography”. EC Nutrition 10.2 (2017): 51-56. Received: June 16, 2017; Published: July 26, 2017 Abstract Harmine is one of an active compound can be found in harmala seed. It has a nutritional and pharmacological value, harmine has antimicrobial, antiplasmodial, antifungal, antioxidative, antitumor, antimutagenic, cytotoxic and hallucinogenic properties. Other than having the pharmacological properties, it has been used as an ingredient in many herbal formulations, which are used for the treatment of various diseases. In this study, harmine was isolated from harmal seeds using ethyl acetate and sodium bicarbonate method. An isolated harmine has been identified using thin layer chromatography paper and HPTLC. For harmine purification, pre- parative plate chromatography and designed column chromatography were used. The result of this study revealed that designed column chromatography has several advantages compared to preparative plate Chromatography (PLC) and classical column Chroma- tography. The amount of purified harmine was two times more, saved time and reduces the amount of solvent. The purity of isolated harmine was confirmed using FTIR spectra and c13NMR. Keywords: Harmine; Classical Column Chromatography; New Designed Column Chromatography; Isolation and Purification; C13 NMR Abbreviations IR: Infrared Spectra; RF: The retardation factor; HPLC: High-Performance Liquid Chromatography; UV: Ultraviolet Introduction Harmane is a B-carboline alkaloid. It is widely distributed in plants, well-cooked foods, tobacco smoke, mammalians as well as in hu- man tissues and body fluids [1,2]. The use of harmine as a multipurpose product has been transferred to several commercial applications. Harmine is an active plant component with a high nutritional value and healthy. It has many traditional medicinal uses and pharmaco- logical activity such as antimicrobial, antitumor and anti-parasitic properties [3-7]. Harmine isolation and purification can be done using several techniques such as Thin Layer Chromatography (TLC), preparative chromatography (PLC), Liquid–solid chromatography (LSC) and high- liquid chromatography (HPLC). Column chromatography, PLC and TLC Chromatography are the ideal method of purification and separation. The disadvantages of using both classical column and TLC chromatography are that: time consuming, requiring the use of large amount of organic solvents, laborious [8]. The disadvantages of TLC compared to classical column chromatography are that using specific reagents to immediately reveal the nature of the separated compound, overloading (volume or mass), need for a larger sample size and its lower sensitivity [9]. PLC can be used for both process isolation and purification of plant extracts rich in non-polar or polar ballast [10]. The advantage of PLC, it can be used as a pilot technique for preparative column chromatography, for a selective system opti- mization and determination of the effects of overloading as maintained by Głowniak., et al [11]. The disadvantage of PLC in order to purify compound using PLC, it needs to use techniques such as TLC, GC or HPLC for isolation of fractions before [12]. In this study, a new design of column chromatography suggested in order to isolate and purify harmine from the extract of Peganum harmala seeds. The designed column has unparalleled advantages, in increasing productivity and purity, saving time and reducing the amount of organic solvents.