$20/L is really not bad for lab solvents... Can you get ethyl acetate which works well and is considerably less toxic?
The upside of caffeine is that is is moderately water soluble (considerably so in hot water) and it's probably much easier to make a very strong cup
of tea or coffee and isolate caffeine from the cooled solution. Using water as an intermediate excludes oily material that nonpolar solvents would
readily remove along with caffeine if you were extracting the solid material directly.
[Edited on 13-10-2015 by UC235] |