With the development of traditional Chinese medicine(TCM) chemistry

more and more studies have focused on the separation and identification of micro-components and new components. However

their biological activity and development value have been hard to be studied due to the difficulties in enrichment and purification. Although

great progresses had been achieved in chromatography technology

such as HPLC and preparative HPLC

it is still hard to prepare in a large scale in laboratory. In order to find a suitable technique

vacuum liquid chromatography (VLC)

which is an effective

convenient and cheap traditional separation technique

was recommended according to our experiences in reference examples during the preparation of these target compounds. Although VLC has been widely used in pharmaceutical

food and somatic industries

it was still a great challenge for new researchers in the field of separation and purification of TCM due to the lack of systematic disclosure of the technique. The characteristics

principle and key operating points of VLC and the separation strategy in laboratory were introduced in this paper to help study the separation and purification of TCM.