Maceration Research Paper

Maceration

Maceration is an old extraction method that involves no heating and no increase in pressure. The extraction material is placed in a flask and a suitable solvent is added to the material in a sufficient amount usually around 1:5 w/w of the material used. The mixture is then stirred at room temperature overnight or over several days after which the mixture is filtered. This process is often repeated a few times to ensure that the extraction is completed.

When maceration is chosen over other extraction methods there can be various reasons. The compound may be sensitive to heat or high pressure. The compound may be unknown so it is safer to use maceration in case it might sensitive to heat or pressure.

Acid-base partition

Acid-base

That depends on the compound that is to be isolated in the water phase, is it acidic or basic. If it where basic then an acid would be added to the mixture and the proton from the acid would be transferred to the basic compound and it would become ionic and more water-soluble. Then the compound would be in the water phase and using a funnel the phases would be separated and the water phase could be removed.

HPLC

High performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) is very useful analysis tool in chemistry. HPLC is an improved form of column chromatography. It uses high pressures to force the solvent through the column instead of just using gravity. By using much higher pressure than normal, the process becomes much faster and it allows the use of smaller particle size for the column packing material. Having smaller particles gives a larger surface area for interactions between the stationary phase and the molecules flowing through it which means better separation. Absorbance

There are two main ways HPLC are used, normal phase and reverse phase. There are other methods but they are less

In the reverse phase the stationary phase is non polar and the mobile phase is moderately polar. The stationary phase is still a silica column but long hydrocarbon chains have been added to its surface. These hydrocarbons are most often C18H37 or C8H17. By adding them to the column it becomes non-polar. A polar solvent, often a mixture of water and methanol is used as the mobile phase. When a polar molecule is passed through the column in reverse phase chromatography the molecules will be more attracted to the mobile phase instead of the stationary phase. Therefore the polar molecules will spend most of their time moving with the solvent.

On the other hand non-polar molecules will form attractions to the silica column because of van der Waals dispersion forces. That means the non-polar molecules will spend a shorter time in solution in the mobile phase and it will slow them down on the way through the column. So over all polar molecules will travel faster through the column than non-polar molecules.

The speed of the molecules going through the column is very important. Because the time it takes them to go through the column and reach the detector is the determining factor in the analysis of the compound. That time is called retention time. Retention time is calculated as the time from injection to