The Vespiary

The Hive => Newbee Forum => Topic started by: fnord on November 24, 2003, 11:52:00 PM

Title: caffine extraction
Post by: fnord on November 24, 2003, 11:52:00 PM
hanging out a campfire in the woods i thought of extracting caffine from tea.useing makeshift chem equipment i tried this by boiling 100 tea bags worth of tea for a half hour and straining the filtrate boiling it down somemore and added some MEK to my creation waited for it to seperate draind the bottom layer thru a bag kept the top and evaportaed  the end result and came out with a redish yeloweish tea tasteing substance. what did i do wrong? and how would i go aboute refineing and crystalising into amore pure product? ice bath maybe?
Title: Google
Post by: Rhodium on November 24, 2003, 11:56:00 PM
Use a better solvent. Google for "caffeine extraction experiment" and you'll find all the details.
Title: campfire
Post by: fnord on December 02, 2003, 11:37:00 PM
i live in the woods so im loking for something more easily done by a campfire probly nt much
Title: I may be mistaken but I do believe caffine can
Post by: mr_pyrex on December 03, 2003, 06:49:00 AM
I may be mistaken but I do believe caffine can be extracted quite easily via C02...liquid C02 that is.  I know for a fact that C02 can pull that caffine out of coffee beans and leave the rest, but I'm not 100% sure if it will work in your situation.  Maybe another elder bee could say for sure.  Good Luck.  Pyrex out of extraction methods ;-)

Title: Supercritical CO2
Post by: moo on December 03, 2003, 07:37:00 AM
At least you need a temperature of 31.1°C and a pressure of 73.8 bar to have CO2 in a superfluid state... yes, easy isn't it?

http://www-holmes.ch.cam.ac.uk/content/co2/co2projects.html (http://www-holmes.ch.cam.ac.uk/content/co2/co2projects.html)



Title: Simple method
Post by: Ziqquratu on December 03, 2003, 08:50:00 AM
It's fairly simple to do... stolen from a first year chemistry lab manual (although this is my abridged version!):

Mix 10g coffee with 200mL distilled water, then slowly add 75mL 5M NaOH.  Swirl until dissolved.  Place mix in sep funnel and extract twice with 50mL DCM.  Empty out the aqueous layer, then pour in the DCM and wash with 50mL distilled water.  Dry the DCM with MgSO4.  Then distil off the DCM - the majority of the stuff in the flask is caffeine.

You may want to wash the crystals with something, as they can be kinda yuck looking... I'm not sure of an appropriate solvent.  And, of course, washing should remove any residual DCM, which may be slightly more healthy if one intended to consume the caffeine...

Title: Simplest method
Post by: Chromic on December 03, 2003, 06:59:00 PM
Use water. Read up on Swiss Water decaffeination... also read up on Chromic's Coldwater technique for extracting codeine from T1s. (it produces recrystallized caffeine as a byproduct of extracting the codeine)

The best thing to try extracting caffeine from is caffeine pills anyways.
Title: caffine extration
Post by: fnord on December 10, 2003, 03:52:00 PM
i dont think i could gt supercritical C02 in th woods i kinda live in a shack in maine how woulod i extract the caffine from a charcoal filter? xlene or probly something like chloraform? looking for an otc solavent that would work well of to do more research
Title: Read my post again
Post by: Chromic on December 11, 2003, 02:38:00 AM
Read my post. Nearly boiling water is the best solvent to extract caffeine with. (i.e. just like you're making coffee)
Title: Purification
Post by: lugh on December 11, 2003, 02:51:00 AM
Published laboratory methods of caffeine purification involve sublimation of the recrystallized product, see

Post 473343 (missing)

(lugh: "Crystallization/Recrystallization", Stimulants) for more information on crystallization/recrystallization  ;)  As far as a campfire procedure, you'd better stick with the coffee/tea pot; purifying alkaloids for human consumption under such conditions is likely to bee futile  ;D