A promising cleaner approach, including chemical extraction, separation and purification by membranes separation technology, for producing ephedrine from Ephedra sinica Stapf was introduced. The extraction yield of ephedrine reached 92.45 +/- 0.46%, increased by 28.25 +/- 0.13% than that of the traditional process, at solid-to-liquid ratio of 1/10, extraction temperature of 80 degrees C, total extraction time of 20 h and reextraction for 3 times. In microfiltration, the transmissivity for ephedrine was up to 97.88 +/- 1.06% and the retention rate of impurities reached 78.56 +/- 0.96% when the membranes with pore size of 0.45 mu m were employed at inlet and outlet operating pressure of 0.26 MPa and 0.14 MPa, respectively. The surface velocity of membrane channel was 3.5 ms(-1) and membrane flux was 207 +/- 3.71lm(-2) h(-1). Nanofiltration membranes with 160Da molecular weight cut-off (MWCO) were adopted to separate the ephedrine from microfiltration permeate at a transmembrane pressure of 0.6 MPa wherein the retention rate of ephedrine reached 99.88 +/- 0.23% and the membrane flux was 19.88 +/- 1.12lm(-2) h(-1). For this improved approach, the COD of nanofiltration permeate was only 110 +/- 12.56 mgl(-1) which could be recycled to the extraction process, causing a decrease by 59.38 +/- 1.67% of water consumption and 75.76 +/- 1.89% of wastewater generation in comparison with those of the traditional process. (C) 2011 The Institution of Chemical Engineers. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.