The mol­ecular structure of the title compound, C11H10O4, contains two fused six‐membered rings. All non‐H atoms are constrained to be coplanar by symmetry, the mol­ecule lying in a mirror plane.

Phorbol is a tetracyclic diterpenoid found in Euphorbia tirucalli, Croton tiglium, and Rehmannia glutinosa, and is nuclear of various phorbol esters. The rapid obtaining of phorbol with high purity highly contributes to its application, such as synthesizing phorbol esters with designable side chains and particular therapeutic efficacy. This study introduced a biphasic alcoholysis method for obtaining phorbol from croton oil by using polarity imparity organic solvents in both phases and established a high‐speed countercurrent chromatography method for simultaneous separation and purification of phorbol. The optimized operation conditions of biphasic alcoholysis were a reaction time of 91 min, a temperature of 14°C, and a croton oil‐methanol ratio of 1:30 (g:ml). The phorbol during the biphasic alcoholysis was 3.2‐fold higher in content than that obtained in conventional monophasic alcoholysis. The optimized high‐speed countercurrent chromatography method was using the ethyl acetate/n‐butyl alcohol/water at 4.7:0.3:5 (v:v:v) with Na2SO4 at 0.36 g/10 ml as the solvent system, using the mobile phase flow rate of 2 ml/min, the revolution of 800 r/min, under which the retention of the stationary phase was achieved at 72.83%. The crystallized phorbol following high‐speed countercurrent chromatography was obtained as high purity of 94%.

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