The liquid phase pulse discharge technology is utilized to extract cepharanthine from Stephania cepharantha Hayata,and the process is optimized.Taking the yield of cepharanthine as response index,three factors such as discharge voltage,extraction time and liquid-solid ratio are optimized by using response surface method.Results show that the optimal process conditions are as follows:discharge voltage is 5.5 kV,extraction time is 4.2 min,and liquid-solid ratio is 52 mL·g-1.Under these conditions,the maximum yield of cepharanthine is 13.07±0.52 mg·g-1,which is significantly higher than the 6.3±0.103 mg·g-1 yield by traditional hot maceration extraction.Meanwhile,the energy consumption of the liquid pulse discharge method is 225 kJ·kg-1,which is lower than the 2,041.2 kJ·kg-1 of the traditional hot maceration extraction.