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Chemistry Forums for Students => High School Chemistry Forum => Topic started by: IBtrying on November 11, 2015, 11:04:39 PM

Title: Extracting caffeine from a dissolved solution (grapefruit juice)?
Post by: IBtrying on November 11, 2015, 11:04:39 PM

I need to dissolve a caffeine pill in grapefruit juice, do an experiment (which is irrelevant to my question), and then extract the caffeine somehow so it can be massed. I've tried using coffee filters, but the accuracy is too low. Is there any chemical substance that is mostly insoluble to grapefruit juice, but is a solvent to caffeine, that I could use to alienate the caffeine? Any other suggestions that I'm not thinking of that are quicker than evaporation, or would speed up evaporation?
Thanks!

Title: Re: Extracting caffeine from a dissolved solution (grapefruit juice)?
Post by: Corribus on November 12, 2015, 09:35:06 AM

I would try ethyl acetate or methylene chloride. Be aware that you may extract other organic substances from the grapefruit juice into the organic phase, though. For best accuracy, you'd probably want to purify the organic phase chromatographically.