METHOD FOR PURIFYING PROGESTERONE

The present disclosure provides a purification method of progesterone, and belongs to the technical field of preparation process of steroids. In this method, aldehyde impurities in a progesterone crude product react with a sulfurated nucleophile to yield highly polar hydroxysulfonates and progesterone to realize solubility differentiation, and highly pure progesterone with a content higher than 99.5% and a total aldehyde impurities content lower than 0.2% is obtained through elutriation, filtration, washing a filter cake with water, and drying. The purification method provided by the present disclosure avoids the technical bottleneck of progesterone purification in the prior art, and all reagents and raw materials used during the reaction are inexpensive and easily available, with low equipment requirement and cost input; the purification process is mild and safe, conditions are easy to control, and the purification and recovery rate of the product is high; reagents used cause little environmental pollution, and particularly highly polluting chromium-containing reagents are not used. Thus, the method coincides with the development trend of the green chemical industry and has excellent economic and social benefits.