In this study, the precipitation efficiency, kinetics, and mechanism of the fractional precipitation for the purification of paclitaxel were investigated using glass beads to increase the surface area to volume ratio of the reaction solution (S/V). The yield of paclitaxel increased proportionally to the S/V to the power of 0.1 ( \(\:Y\propto\:{\left(S/V\right)}^{0.1}\) ). The maximum yield (~ 92%) was achieved after 10 min of precipitation at the optimal S/V (0.21 mm− 1). This yield was a 2.28-fold increase compared to conventional fractional precipitation. This precipitation method was efficient because hydrogen bonds are formed between the glass bead molecules and paclitaxel molecules during fractional precipitation, and the glass bead surface acts as a heterogeneous nucleation site. The paclitaxel purity increased by approximately 20% as the precipitation time increased, but it was hardly affected by S/V. By applying the precipitation data to a pseudo-second-order model, a model was proposed that can predict the surface area to volume ratio of the reaction solution (S/V) and the concentration of precipitated paclitaxel (Ct) as a function of the operating time (t). Furthermore, a good fit between the experimental and predicted data was confirmed.
