Herein, a renewable system consisted of tartaric acid and isopropanol was developed to produce diosgenin efficiently from Dioscorea zingiberensis rhizomes. The yield of diosgenin reached 4.15% comparable to the highest value reported in previous researches. The combination of experiment and DFT calculation revealed that the acid-alcohol system could regulate the hydrogen bond interaction of each component in the rhizomes to disassemble the connection network and promote the release of saponin. Meanwhile, the intramolecular hydrogen bond of tartaric acid and the steric hindrance effect of isopropanol could prevent the esterification reaction and maintain the strong acidity of the system for the high yield of diosgenin. The scale-up experiment with a 100-fold feeding capacity was also conducted successfully. Furthermore, the technological process integrated with purification of diosgenin, recovery of organic acid and solvent and upgrading of residual solid to porous carbon materials has been established systematically to verify the prospective of industrialization.

中文翻译：

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氢键调节促进薯蓣根茎直接产生薯蓣皂苷元


在此，开发了一种由酒石酸和异丙醇组成的可再生系统，以从薯蓣根茎中有效生产薯蓣皂苷元。薯蓣皂苷元的收率达到4.15%，与之前研究报道的最高值相当。实验与DFT计算相结合表明，酸-醇体系可以调节根茎中各成分的氢键相互作用，破坏连接网络，促进皂苷的释放。同时，酒石酸的分子内氢键和异丙醇的空间位阻作用可以阻止酯化反应，保持体系的强酸性，从而获得薯蓣皂苷元的高收率。 100倍投料能力的放大实验也取得了成功。系统建立了薯蓣皂苷元纯化、有机酸和溶剂回收、残余固体升级为多孔碳材料的工艺流程，验证了工业化前景。