Oh my, been a long time time since I did an a/b extraction--was time for a refresher. I've had these mesquite bean pods sitting around for a while
so....
30July14 weighed my beans. Had 41gm.
Put them in a blender, then my 500ml RBF
Thinking about waxes, fats, etc I washed them with two separate 100ml portions of white gas (coleman)
Pressed the seedcake dry and extracted with a solution of 10ml 37% HCl and 90ml H2O
NEGLECTED to take a pic here--*facepalm*. Had a grayish solution. Dried most of way down in my evap dish
Made up 100ml of 10% NaOH solution and poured in my evap dish. Whoa! Turned red/orange, huge (seeming) drop out of oil.
Extracted the "oil" with 100ml coleman, then extracted THAT with 100ml 0f 10% HCl solution
The Dreaded Emulsion
I got squat for yield of some unknown gummy alkaloid, but hey, I don't do this stuff for fame and fortune LOL
forgottenpassword - 1-8-2014 at 22:51
In general, most alkaloids will be poorly soluble in naphtha. I would recommend that you get some dichloromethane, if possible, as it is the best
general solvent for alkaloids. Failing that, diethyl ether, ethyl acetate, or even toluene would be better solvents to use than naphtha. If you
extract alkaloids as their bases, rather than HCl salts, by omitting your final HCl extraction, you can separate them easily with thin layer or paper
chromatography.
Having said that, I have no idea if mesquite beans even contain alkaloids.
[Edited on 2-8-2014 by forgottenpassword]arkoma - 2-8-2014 at 09:47
Having said that, I have no idea if mesquite beans even contain alkaloids.
[Edited on 2-8-2014 by forgottenpassword]
me either---LOL. I just got done replacing an axle on my nephews car, he is supposed to get me a can of ethyl acetate (MEK substitute). I'm solvent
"poor" and had naptha "laying around" in the garage.forgottenpassword - 2-8-2014 at 10:50
And who knows what kinds of amino acids lurk in plants. People eat mesquite flour frequently, but I remember reading about McCandles: he died
discovering the poisonous amino acid in a plant then described as edible! Lathyrism! Disturbingly, only poisonous - and yet irreversibly, by massive
chronic ingestion. But they tested for alkaloids, qualifying "no, he died because he was a fool", but on looking again it was not the alkaloids but
rather the amino acid.
