Soxhlet extraction, morphine

[Artificial Emotion]

If you wished to defat a sample of pod putty and wanted to use a soxhlet extrator, what solvent would you use to remove the lipid impurities?

 

[mrjefferson]

Aren't lipids/fats generally soluble in non-polar solvents such as petroleum ether and hexanes?

 

[Quanta]

Is it morphine base in the putty? Gonna be tough, I don't think morphine hydrate is very soluble in chloroform but I would probably suggest hexanes. Why do you want to do this?

 

[Artificial Emotion]

I want to do an extraction and need to get rid of the fats as one of the first steps.

 

[robatussin]

so you are making pod tea to puddy and want to get rid of th fat ( I assume) Good to know the hexanes are good fr that

 

[vecktor]

the usual way is to get the alkaloids into an acidic aqueous solution and then defat the aqueous with a non polar solvent, then flip it over to being basic and extract the alkaloids with non polar.

if you are using a soxhlet extractor then there is a problem, even things that are fairly insoluble whatever solvent you are using will be extracted because they are being continually exposed to fresh solvent, even a crap solvent like hexane will pull a lot of material.
perhaps you should use a soxhlet and alcohol as the solvent to strip out all the solubles, then remove the alcohol and run normal acid base.

 

[Artificial Emotion]

What about this method, would it work?

One makes one's tea, reduces down to thick syrup, dissolves vigorously in ethanol, lets stand in cold for hours, then filters through Nalgene 0.2 micron vacuum filter. The surgical spirit (methanol and ethanol) is used to crash out most of the particulate crap that fucks up the later steps. So now that one has the alcohol solution, it is reduced again, taken back up in water (about 10 mls per gram concentrated putty) and brought slowly to around pH 12 to 13 with Ca(OH)2 under mild heat. This is then again filtered through the Nalgene filter (at this point one has made calcium morphinate phenol salt, soluble in water as morph is an amphoteric alkaloid), and then pH is brought down to around 9 with ammonium chloride. Then place in freezer overnight and look for tan powder sinking at bottom of beaker.

 

[Quanta]

What about this method, would it work?

Should work - be very careful when adjusting the pH back down to 9, don't go too far below that.