Use of hexane and ethyl acetate in chlorophyll extraction
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Why is a mixture of hexane and ethyl acetate used in this alkaloid extraction-procedure?
Dielectric constant (DC) is a measure of polarity of solvent. Very generally, "like dissolves like": Polar stuff dissolves in polar solvents, nonpolar dissolves in nonpolar.
E.g. from table,
Hexane has dielectric constant of ~2
Water has dielectric constant of 80
This means water is extremely polar while hexane is pretty nonpolar.
Hence as we observe, both hexane and water are immiscible.
What we can hence infer (albeit very generally) from the table of DC values is that ... 2 solvents far apart in DC values are probably immiscible.
For any organic extraction, choose your solvents, mix and run TLCs with extract samples. Alter your ratio of solvents until you get the best separation, then stick with it.
Choosing your solvents at the beginning really carefully would, of course, make everything more effective/efficient. But I'm no expert at that myself.
Would be great if anyone at all can care to correct any of my points and/or elaborate further on how to choose/mix solvents for separations. Thanks!
Dielectric constant (DC) is a measure of polarity of solvent. Very generally, "like dissolves like": Polar stuff dissolves in polar solvents, nonpolar dissolves in nonpolar.
E.g. from table,
Hexane has dielectric constant of ~2
Water has dielectric constant of 80
This means water is extremely polar while hexane is pretty nonpolar.
Hence as we observe, both hexane and water are immiscible.
What we can hence infer (albeit very generally) from the table of DC values is that ... 2 solvents far apart in DC values are probably immiscible.
For any organic extraction, choose your solvents, mix and run TLCs with extract samples. Alter your ratio of solvents until you get the best separation, then stick with it.
Choosing your solvents at the beginning really carefully would, of course, make everything more effective/efficient. But I'm no expert at that myself.
Would be great if anyone at all can care to correct any of my points and/or elaborate further on how to choose/mix solvents for separations. Thanks!
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