I am looking for a standard procedure to follow to extract oil from seeds using the soxhlet apparatus with n-hexane as the solvent.
Thank you
Soxhelt is a simple apparatus and you can use different solvents, easily.
The amount of solvent and required time depends on the type of material you want to extract.
You must fill the beakers entirely and allow the Soxhlet works until all oil is dissolved into the solvent, generally 8 hours is ok. But, you must conduct pre tests
1- Take known amount of the plant for example 50 gm. put into thimble .
2- Put the thimble into the soxhlet ( the size of thimble and soxhlet should be
proper for each other)
3- Add hexane to the round bottle flask ( proper amount), start heating.
4- Continue extraction till the hexane in the soxhlet becomes colorless.
5- Record the extraction time from staring extraction till colorless hexane.
6- Evaporate the hexane by rotary evaporator .
7- The remained in the flask is oils, weigh and calculate %.
Marah Al Taher I Agreed with Sir, Faiq H S Hussain. One point I want to add is:
Heat the heating mantle to a temperature somewhat below the boiling point of n-hexane.
But, I suggest you use the Clevenger apparatus for oil extraction rather than using the Soxhlet apparatus.
Thanks
Seyyed Morteza Hoseini Faiq H S Hussain Preety Rohilla Thank you so much for your reply!
If just have two more questions if you could advise me.
If my thimble fits approximately 25g and my round bottom flask is 250ml. Is 250ml a proper amount for 25g of sample?
and I don't really have a rotatory evaporator available now so it is accurate if I use a water bath to evaporate the hexane?
Thank you again
- Badges
- Science topic
- Similar topics
- Phytochemistry
- Extracts