blue.magic
Rising Star
Completely extracting cactus powder in a Soxhlet apparatus takes at least several hours even if the material is soaked in warm alcohol prior to extraction.
Since I already have an alinh condenser and hotplate stirrer, I was thinking about improving the extraction by boiling the cactus powder in alcohol in a refluxing setup (the alcohol vapors will condense and won't escape the flask.
The alcoholic extract will be then decanted or filtered and fresh alcohol will be poured in. This will be repeated three or four times.
I wonder how effective this would be compared to say 30 Soxhlet cycles or water extraction.
Of course, precautions will be made as this setup needs to be superwised, and the even boiling will be controlled by constant stirring.
I came to this idea since the extract tends to stick to the round bottom flask in Soxhlet and the residue on the walls gets burned and sticks to the flask.
Another option would be washing the cactur powder prior to extraction (removing fats and oils) using acetone, cold MEK or prefferably, cold ethyl acetate. However, I am not sure how any of these methods will be effective.
Any ideas?
Since I already have an alinh condenser and hotplate stirrer, I was thinking about improving the extraction by boiling the cactus powder in alcohol in a refluxing setup (the alcohol vapors will condense and won't escape the flask.
The alcoholic extract will be then decanted or filtered and fresh alcohol will be poured in. This will be repeated three or four times.
I wonder how effective this would be compared to say 30 Soxhlet cycles or water extraction.
Of course, precautions will be made as this setup needs to be superwised, and the even boiling will be controlled by constant stirring.
I came to this idea since the extract tends to stick to the round bottom flask in Soxhlet and the residue on the walls gets burned and sticks to the flask.
Another option would be washing the cactur powder prior to extraction (removing fats and oils) using acetone, cold MEK or prefferably, cold ethyl acetate. However, I am not sure how any of these methods will be effective.
Any ideas?