thechemlife - 26-4-2012 at 19:17
So after hearing about the resent studies done on carvacrol I thought it was a rather interesting compound and would be a nice sample to have. Also it
would be good practice at extracting compounds from plants.
This unfortunately is where the problem arrises. I was thinking since it is soluable in acetone I could just preform a simple extraction with that.
However there are several other compounds that I'd like to avoid extracting such as thymol, limonene, pinene, ocimene, and caryophyllene. All are
insoluble in water and from what I can tell are soluble in most organic solvents.
So what would be the best way to isolate the carvacrol with as little contamination as possible?
Because im just using this as a sample and not for consumption im not all that worried about purity, that's mostly for practice and my own knowledge.
Adas - 27-4-2012 at 07:01
I think it is very difficult to separate it from Thymol, because it is very similar compound.
Eddygp - 27-4-2012 at 12:58
hmph... Thymol and carvacrol are isomers. Once you have distilled it from other easier chemicals, you should look up for different properties of
these. Thymol is solid and carvacrol is liquid, at STP (but what if thymol dissolves in carvacrol, which probably does). Distillation?
eddy
Eddygp - 27-4-2012 at 13:01
PS. Wikipedia:
[Carvacrol] is extracted from Origanum oil by means of a 50% potash solution. It is a thick oil which sets at 20 °C to a mass of crystals of melting
point 0 °C, and boiling point 236–237 °C. Oxidation with ferric chloride converts it into dicarvacrol, whilst phosphorus pentachloride transforms
it into chlorcymol.
Eddygp - 1-5-2012 at 11:28
Have you managed to extract it?