I am more of a biology/botany guy but recently I decided to buy myself a bunch of glass. I am doing simple distillation at the moment and using a
Soxhlet to extract compounds from different plants.
At present I am making concrete with Orange Blossoms and the small fruits that dont develop y the sweet and bitter orange trees (we have quite a few).
Then I want to try and extract the aroma of the Salvia divinorum flowers. They have an amazing smell of blueberries and oregano.
My next project is going to be to try and fraction gasoline/petrol to try and get organic solvents. I have some old gas stored in a can thats past
due.
I did get a short path distillation set but I am lacking a chiller, a water pump and a vacuum pump. I am thinking on getting a rotovap as well.
Im using water from a spring for condensation, I need to check the temperature.
Anyways people, as I said before, glad to be here and I would appreciate any and all documents regarding extractions, botany and basic organic
chemistry. I already downloaded what I could find around in the search, though Im aure there plenty more as I keep looking.
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[Edited on 29-4-2021 by Mr. Rik]Newton2.0 - 29-4-2021 at 03:04
Awesome! There is so much knowledge on this forum and so many people who have an extremely diverse field of interests.
One of my first instruments was a Soxhlet extractor! I would argue that some of the most fantastic natural compounds are isolated from plant sources!
All I have to say is don't get discouraged! I am new as well and I often just want to burn my house down when things get too frustrating and the
failures mount. It's usually because my understanding of a concept was incomplete.
Welcome!
Fery - 29-4-2021 at 05:11
Hi Mr. Rik and welcome here!
I did hydrodistillation few times, extracting terpenes from various citrus peels (orange, lemon, ...) decades ago and dry herb of mentha piperita
twice last 2 years (1 kg of dry herb from my garden every year which yields slightly less than 10 ml of esential oil).
Be mindful of the benzene your gasoline likely contains.
Texium - 29-4-2021 at 09:46
Salvia divinorum huh... interesting choice. The best low budget way to cool a condenser would be to get an insulated container (like a drink cooler)
and fill it with ice water. Get a cheap mini fountain pump (they’re like $20-30) and you’ve got yourself an inexpensive DIY chiller. All you have
to do is top it up with ice occasionally. I agree that a rotovap would be a good investment for you if you’re going to mostly be doing plant
extractions. You’ll inevitably have lots of solvent to evaporate. In the meantime, you can start by getting an inexpensive rotary vane vacuum pump,
which you could use to perform vacuum distillations in a normal apparatus (best to install some kind of bleed valve in the line though, so that you
can ramp up the vacuum slowly to avoid bumping). You’ll need one for the rotovap anyway, as they typically don’t come with a pump.Mr. Rik - 30-4-2021 at 07:30
Thank you all for the links and the comments. My wife and I moved recently to a tropical mountain farm. We have a decent plot of land to cultivate and
create our botanical collection.
Here is a picture of the S. divinorum flowers. They flower all together and looks beautiful and smell just as good. I am also waiting for the Coffea
robusta trees to flower, they too have an amazing and super strong fragance. I was cutting the coffee bushes down but now I am leaving some.
I am being veru careful now of what I chop down, I'm trying to Id everything before deciding whether I chop it, collect it or leave it growing.
symboom - 30-4-2021 at 08:33
Welcome it will be great to see more biology and botany.SuperOxide - 1-6-2021 at 14:35
My next project is going to be to try and fraction gasoline/petrol to try and get organic solvents. I have some old gas stored in a can thats past
due.
I don't think it's as easy as you might think. His results are a mixed bag, as there are so many constituents in gasoline/petrol that even with a
decently long fractionation column (which Tom used ~60cm I believe), it's hard to achieve decent separation of the fractions.
However, something that's similar that might be fun is the fractional distillation of crude oil. That's something I want to give a shot, I just don't
have the glassware to do it (or the crude oil, but I'm told you can get that on eBay). I know with gasoline, there are often additives put in there
for various purposes (prevent knocking, make it environmentally friendly, cleaning agents, performance enhancers, etc), most of which isn't found in
crude oil. However, I think depending on the source of the crude oil, it may still be a pain in the butt - But a great chance to learn :-)dicyanin - 13-6-2021 at 03:01
Extracting coniin from Socrates' last drink. Damn that is pretty badass, my hat's off to you. Interesting that this alkaloid is volatile with steam.karlos³ - 13-6-2021 at 09:37
Bee welcome!
Your S. divinorum flowers did smell?
I couldn't really perceive any aroma, but back then I was still a smoker, so maybe my sense of smell wasn't good enough?Amos - 14-6-2021 at 05:28
I've never met a member of genus Salvia that wasn't intensely aromatic, usually in a great way. But I can picture it having no smell if grown in poor
soil or if given too much water.
I think as long as gasoline is fractionated with a good column, you can probably get a crude low-boiling mixture of hydrocarbons that would behave
somewhat like petroleum ether or toluene. Considering there aren't many highly reactive species in gasoline, I think it's a good idea. All you're
really looking for is something cheap with a low boiling point.
Welcome to the forum! Your work so far sounds similar to a lot of what I've done; I love extracting things from natural sources and pulling out the
Soxhlet to do so. I hope you keep us updated with your projects and ask any question you might have!
