I understand that there are several methods available to prepare plant extract namely maceration, decoction, infusion, Soxhlet Extraction, Microwave assisted extraction (MAE), supercritical fluid extraction, etc. As a beginner, I assume that maceration is very simple and safe for thermolabile substances. However, while reading research articles, I do understand that soxhlet is a golden standard method as which is being mentioned in numerous studies. I need to prepare the plant extract with all three kind of solvents namely polar, non-polar and mid-polar and advice me to choose the best.
Thanking you in advance for sharing your knowledge.
To extract polar compounds in extract it is best to use water, ethanol methanol or butanol while for non polar compounds diethyl ether, hexane or chloroform depending on the use of the estract. I believe these will give you good result.
For polar: 70% Methanol in water
Mid-polar: Ethyl acetate
Non-polar: Use hexane or pentane
The simple extraction method steeping plants: with a solvent (methanol / water: 70/30: v / v) with stirring for 2 hours, and a temperature not exceeding 50 ° C, three repetition extraction, followed by filtration and drying in an oven.
Hi,
My main concern is that, have I to employ maceration technique or Soxhlet extraction. I need an advice about the method (either maceration or soxhlet), which is the best.
It depends on what type of compound u want to isolate, as sohxlet is used to isolate thermostable compounds. according to my suggestion first go for maceration followed by sohxlet.
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