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Centrifugal partition chromatography (CPC) and all countercurrent separation apparatus provide chemists with efficient ways to work with complex matrixes, especially in the domain of natural products. However, despite the great advances provided by these techniques, more efficient ways of analyzing the output flow would bring further enhancement. This study describe a hyphenated approach made by coupling NMR with CPC through a hybrid-indirect coupling made possible by using a solid phase extraction (SPE) apparatus intended for high-pressure liquid chromatography (HPLC)-NMR hyphenation. Some hardware changes were needed to adapt the incompatible flow-rates and a reverse-engineering approach that led to the specific software required to control the apparatus. 1D 1HNMR and 1H–1H correlation spectroscopy (COSY) spectra were acquired in reasonable time without the need for any solvent-suppression method thanks to the SPE nitrogen drying step. The reduced usage of expensive deuterated solvents from several hundreds of milliliters to the milliliter order is the major improvement of this approach compared to the previously published ones.

Countercurrent chromatography techniques are increasingly used in the fractionation and purification steps of natural products due to their excellent versatility and efficiency. However, one of the major bottlenecks in liquid-liquid chromatography is the solvent system selection. In this work, a NMR-based analysis of complex solvent mixtures was developed for biphasic system selection and modification. This allowed us to develop more versatile separation conditions, such as gradients. Additionally, we hyphenated our countercurrent chromatography device with NMR and mass spectrometry. Our hybrid technique afforded a time-saving approach with a significant reduction in compound handling, an asset in working with minor and/or sensitive compounds. Current results and further developments will be presented and discussed.