Patent ID: 8349819

Claim:
A method for obtaining steroids from urine, said urine containing phenolic constituents, a first group of esterified steroid constituents (first ESC) and a second group of esterified steroid constituents (second ESC), said method comprising: a. contacting urine, optionally pretreated by: (i) filtering to remove extraneous solid matter, adjusting and/or buffering the pH of the urine to about 8.0 or more; or (ii) reducing said phenolic constituents of said urine to result in a reduced-phenolic content urine and a high phenolic content portion; or both of (i) and (ii), or (iii) contacting the urine, the product of (i), a reduced-phenolic content urine product of (ii), or a product of (i) and (ii), with a first non-ionic resin (first resin) capable of extracting at least a portion of non-steroidal organic materials; with a second non-ionic resin (second resin), said second resin capable of extracting at least one constituent of said first ESC without substantially extracting said second ESC, to result in a first ESC constituent laden second resin and a liquid remainder, and separating said first ESC constituent laden second resin from said liquid remainder; b. contacting said liquid remainder with a third cationic resin (third resin), said third resin capable of extracting at least one constituent of said second ESC from said liquid remainder to result in a second ESC constituent laden third resin and a second liquid remainder and separating said second ESC constituent laden third resin from said second liquid remainder; and c. independently recovering the first ESC from said first ESC laden second resin and the second ESC from said second ESC laden third resin.