Sciencemadness Discussion Board

Precipitating alkaloids by converting into insoluble salt

alchemizt - 16-3-2022 at 19:15

I extracted alkaloids from a tropical plant into chloroform and then dissolved succinic acid in ethyl acetate and this is what happened when mixing the two solutions together:



What I find interesting is that ethyl acetate and chloroform usually readily mix together, they don't form two layers like this. But in this case they didn't mix. It looks like the precipitated succinate alkaloids in the center form a barrier.

Is it that the precipitated succinate salts repel both the ethyl acetate and chloroform because they are insoluble in both, and this forms a separation of the two layers?

About this method of precipitating alkaloids, is this an effective way to extract alkaloids? So long as the salt formed is completely insoluble in both solvents, it should be possible to recover all of the alkaloids shouldn't it?

draculic acid69 - 17-3-2022 at 02:32

Just vac filter and see what you got

alchemizt - 23-3-2022 at 22:22

Quote: Originally posted by draculic acid69  
Just vac filter and see what you got


I did this and got a yellow solid. When I tried to dissolve the solid in boiling methanol, it dissolved all the yellow material and left behind a white solid. This white solid seems to be insoluble in everything, including water. I cant even dissolve it enough to run a TLC.