Abstract:This paper summarizes the development of the property, extraction and purification, and quantitative determination of tea saponin. Besides, issues needing further study were indicated .A simple purification method for crude tea saponin was described. The 70%of crude tea saponin was dissolved in 2% sodium hydroxide aqueous solution and precipitated by adding 20% hydrochloric acid. The deposit was dissolved with 95%ethanol, and the acetone was added to the ethanol solution to make the tea saponin to be precipitated. A reverse phase high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) method for determination of tea saponin extracted from tea-seed pancake with Soxhlet was studied. With the column Hewlett Packard ODS Hypersil (5µm 125mm*4mm)and mobile phase methanol at flow-rate of 0.5 ml/min. The recovery rate of tea saponin was 97.6709%
Key words:reverse-phase high perform ance liquid chromat0graphy;tea saponin; purification