Will column separate 20 different alkaloids?

[Viviansnows23]

So I'm just getting into column chromatography and I have a few questions. I realize they are somewhat novice, but I'm really interested and had trouble finding informative answers.

What I'm trying to do: Isolate quinine alkaloid from cinchona bark with the goal of eventually scaling it up.

1. Cinchona bark has up to 20 different alkaloids. If I dump a sample into a column, are they going to separate into 20 different bands of color? I'm asking this 'cause all the demonstrations I see show 2, maybe 3 bands of color at most.

2. From what I gather, column chromatography is the best way to get the purest quinine. What type of sample quantities am I going to be able to put through a column? Do I have to get an expensive prep chromatography machine if I want to do anything larger than a gram? Is there anything in between? What type of sample sizes can I put in a 40mm column?

I hope I don't come across as too annoying just trying to figure things out!

[DR]

The answer to most of your questions is "it depends".

You would almost certainly not get 20 bands from a gravity based chromatography column. If you're only interested in one of them, though, you may be able to get that. The capacity of your column will largely be a function of how much resolution you can achieve for that one band of interest. The farther away it is from the others, the better. Also, these things will not come out colored, you will have to have a UV spectrophotometer to read fractions if using a gravity column (or an inline detector).

To do this commercially, you will almost certainly be in need of a prep system. You will also need either an analytical system or to farm out the development work by which you can set your conditions and test your fractions. The notes above apply to use of a prep system as well. A 40mm column may be good to a few grams of sample, depending on the separation efficiency.

You really should educate yourself about the basic concepts of chromatography, including how it works, detection models, capacity and prep scale issues before embarking on this in a serious way.
Also see if others have found cheaper ways to extract your quinine... Prep scale chromatography is not always the cheapest way to isolate and purify things that can't be cheaply synthesized.