RogueRose
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Extracting Tomatine from tomato plants (leaves/stems)
I'm interested in getting some tomatine which is one of the most interesting alkaloids of the tomato and is most abundant in the stems and leaves.
From what I've seen it looks like it is soluble in methanol an ethanol (and possibly water). I've found it listed on some chem supplier sites for
$180/100mg! so buying isn't an option.
The issue I'm worried about are other alkaloids which are present in the greenery of tomatos as I know that Solanine is as well but at much lower
amounts and I'm not sure what it is soluble in.
As for extraction I was wondering if drying the plant matter would be best or if doing it while still "green" moist would be better - both dry/wet
would be chipped/shredded and processed as fine as possible.
Any suggestions on how this might best be handled?
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NEMO-Chemistry
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do a TLC on a couple of soxhlet extractions, use ethanol and methanol to extract and maybe try chloroform. then TLC the extracts and see what appears
in the bands. I have used extracts from tomato leaves for scent in soap.
Despite its name, its worth getting hold of a copy of 'A modern Herbal'. its a long way from modern but has alot of useful info on this kind of thing.
Also i have seen tomato plant extracts mentioned in a cosmetic monograph , but i cant remember which one at the moment.
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SWIM
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US patent US3682883A might be a good starting point.
It covers extraction of total solanum alkaloids from tomato plants.
Of course you'd still need to isolate the one you want, but this would at least get you from the messy plant and wood-chipper stage to a mixture of
alkaloids in a flask to mess around with.
Nowadays they probably use HPLC or some other expensive equipment to isolate it, but You could probably go all Manske on it's ass and isolate it from
the total crude alkaloids with fractional crystallization or column chromatography or some such old school techniques.
There's a JACS reference from 1951 in the references on wikipedia that's supposed to be for its isolation from tomato plants, and one from Arch
Biochem, 1948, as well.
As a general note, drying is VERY common in extracting alkaloids from plant material because to ruptures those cell membranes and allows better
solvent penetration. It also stops some enzymatic degradation problems you can have in some fresh materials.
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VSEPR_VOID
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It may help to dry out the tomato foliage and stems before hand. If you were to let a kilogram or so of the material dry out by placing it in a drying
box, basically a heating light in a closed box, and then performing an extraction on that the yield might be higher. Instead of heaving to contend
with all that water in the tissue of the plant, it would be the solvent of your choice and dry material.
Within cells interlinked
Within cells interlinked
Within cells interlinked
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NEMO-Chemistry
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I dry my material in a plastic box, i place a thick layer of cheap sodium chloride and long grain rice in stockings along the bottom. then a mesh and
finally the plants on top. they dry quickly and seem to give a better yield.
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