Artemisinin is the most effective specific antimalarial drug after ethirimide, chloroquine and primaquine, especially for cerebral malaria and chloroquine malaria, which has the characteristics of quick onset and low toxicity. It was once called "the only effective malaria treatment drug in the world" by the World Health Organization.
Commercially available artemisinin mainly comes from plant extracts. Theoretically, extracting artemisinin is valuable only when the content of artemisinin in plants reaches 1 or above. The content of artemisinin in natural plants is influenced by geographical environment, collection time, collection place, temperature, fertilization and other factors. Artemisinin content in Artemisia annua produced in northern China is extremely low.
The method of extracting artemisinin from Artemisia annua is based on the extraction principle, which mainly includes ether extraction and solvent gasoline extraction. The volatile oil is mainly extracted by steam distillation and separated by vacuum distillation.
The process flow is as follows: feeding-adding water-distilling-cooling-oil-water separation-essential oil; Non-volatile components are mainly separated by organic solvent extraction, column chromatography and recrystallization, and the basic process is: drying-crushing-soaking, extraction (repetition)-concentrated extract-crude product-refining.