Hi,
I have prepared freeze-dried plant extracts. Now I want to run antioxidant assays on these plant extracts. But few powders do not dissolve in distilled water. What can I do now?
Thank you in advance
It all depends what extraction solvent you used in the first place before freeze-drying and what experiment you want to do with the freeze-dried material. If it is for biological assay, the best you could do is to use DMSO – The smallest possible volume – and dilute it in water. If it is for chemical/physical analysis, you have other option but depend on the polarity of the extracted material (what it was extracted with). The trick would be to use pure DMSO first and dilute it to your requirement instead of a diluted DMSO of the final percentage requirement.
It all depends what extraction solvent you used in the first place before freeze-drying and what experiment you want to do with the freeze-dried material. If it is for biological assay, the best you could do is to use DMSO – The smallest possible volume – and dilute it in water. If it is for chemical/physical analysis, you have other option but depend on the polarity of the extracted material (what it was extracted with). The trick would be to use pure DMSO first and dilute it to your requirement instead of a diluted DMSO of the final percentage requirement.
I will recommend both above-mentioned suggestions. Use the solvents (begin with DMSO) polarity table to see how the solvent increases the solubility of your product.
Thank you for your answers. The initial plant extract was prepared in water. Then freeze-dried. I am trying out the antioxidant assays. Will the DMSO work in this case?
Hi,
I think that is more accurate (for the antioxidant activity test) to dissolve the extract in the same solvent (Water), and you can make the dissolution easier by treating the suspension (powder + water) in an ultrasonication bath (e.g. Elmasonic) until the powder will be completely dissolved.
Regards!
Dear Jivendra Wickramasinghe,
If you use DMSO to dissolve the plant extract, you should work with the same amount of DMSO without the extract as a control group.
Good luck!
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