popscience - 16-7-2017 at 18:37
What is the optimum temperature to dry plant based samples in an oven so as not to destroy the plant composition? The dried samples are going to be
used for Soxhlet extraction.
[Edited on 17-7-2017 by popscience]
Fulmen - 17-7-2017 at 04:41
Room temperature? Takes a while, but should retain everything but the most volatile components. Freeze drying would be even better. That's not as hard
as it might sound, but you do need a vacuum pump that can run for extended periods.
If you use a high boiling solvent that isn't miscible with water you can extract wet material using a Dean-Stark attachment to separate out the water.
It works very well with toluene, but other solvents should work as well. Basically the solvent should have a lower density and higher boiling point
than water.
Ozone - 17-7-2017 at 19:27
You can grind (mortar and pestle) it with anhydrous magnesium sulfate until a fine powder is obtained. Extract that.
O3
DrP - 18-7-2017 at 05:43
Vacuum oven? 40C or so with reduced pressure should strip off any water or solvent.
feacetech - 18-7-2017 at 16:59
I have dried fungus at 40C over threes days (closed air oven), but it proably depends on the water activity.
I used to also dry stuff in a vacuum oven but the hot plate on the bottom wasnt very good and often over cooked things.
Most plant material can be dried in a humidty controlled environment at room temperatures