Hey,

I'm trying to figure out how much approximately each soxhlet can hold? Like the 55/50 and 71/60 and higher? Anyone have an idea of what can do 1lb at a time? Not wanting to do a large extraction, but not wanting to break it out into 100gm increments either.

I am also interesting in using a soxhlet for extraction. So i ask, what material are you using(MHRB...etc)?

a pressure cooker.

large soxhlets can handle a half-pound at most

Did the pressure cooker. Too ghetto.

My 71/60 can do 1.1 pound at a time with DE added. It's a pretty good size, I was just interested in what everyone else had to say.

I prefer soxhlet to clle and gas and just be done with it, ya know?

ghetto is using jars for beakers.

soxhlet is pretty efficient for what it does, but it's 1879 technology
disadvantage: run time...soxhlets run for several hours to be effective. great for pulling oils and lipids, but as far as pulling alks, it's not very efficient. may as well do an acidic slow cook.
lysing the cells is the added bonus of using a PC, something the soxhlet doesn't do.

i did the soxhlet thing several years ago; after a couple runs, i found quicker, more effective methods.

A soxhlet is fun to watch, but for MHRB I had a hell of a time with the powder blocking it from flowing correctly. I prefer other methods either mild acid cooking or more violent mechanical means such as sonication.

I did an extraction of vanilla beans chopped up into little pieces and wrapped in filter paper. It did a wonderful job using 95% grain alcohol as the solvent. It was fun to play with the setup for sure.

Sonication? Tell me more. Please.

The reason I don't like a PC and related methods is, well, it's too messy. I don't like dealing with the volume of liquid, etc. when I could just run a kilo through a soxhlet in 24 hours, do it again, distill it and then run that through a CLLe with dcm and get beautiful needlepoint crystals.

Also, I've had the peculiar results with bark from two different sources (one from Mexico, the other Brazil). The Mexican bark was very easily pulled in a PC or any other container, very user friendly almost. The Brazilian bark was a bitch! Man, so much water was needed and the solvent was still getting trapped. I started out using toluene and it was forming an awful emulsion or just getting trapped in the bark, something completely new to me. I finally just ended up using napatha, because it seemed to be the easiest, cheapest solvent available and also worked surprisingly well. It was just a strange situation. And I am not a novice to the technique.

I just happen to like a large soxhlet, it feels like it does the job more effecently than a PC and all the related crap associated with it. Maybe it's just because I've thrown so much basified mimosa on my floor that I'm sick of dealing with it .

letting a soxhlet run for 24 hours is more efficient than letting a PC run for 40 - 50 mins?
no way. ok, so it is a dirtier method, but it's much quicker.

rivea is referring to the use of cavitation bubbles to rupture plant cell walls.
they can typically do this in 5 - 20 mins.

here's an example of one in action.

I don't know, maybe it's just the bark I have at the moment. It just does not psyche me when using a PC. It's kind of unusual... It's Pedro, but it seems like it takes *way* more water and it swells up and wants to devour my solvent and not give it back. When trying to cook it in the pressure cooker, it also seems to burn. I don't know, I'm just frustrated, the soxhlet never gave me this problem. I've had great success just using a several gallon glass container in the past with a 2% yeild. Can't really explain what is going on.

you didn't put the raw material in jars?

I've noticed san pedro powder swell up when water was added to it; this means the cells are not lysed. So, I added vinegar to it, and put it in jars to be pressure cooked. It lyses the cells, and it's not quite as messy as adding it straight to the pot.

note: this should only be attempted with a stainless pc. acids/bases will react with aluminum pots, of course.