Hello. I have been experimenting with extracting some herbal supplement powders, like Reishi, using ethanol and water, and I have a question about basic solubility:
If an extracted compound is alcohol soluble, will it also be generally lipid soluble as well? If I combine alcohol extract with MCT and slowly boil off alcohol, will remaining constituents be evenly distributed or get concentrated and perhaps fall out? I have clearly seen water solubles precipitate out when similarly boiled off, but not conclusive with alcohol.
Process involves room temperature/heated ethanol, filtering with Whatman #5 in vacuum assisted Buchner then solvent reduction in vacuum distillation apparatus.
Sorry if this is basic question. Thanks.
short, general answer to your question is no.
alcohols are polar molecules. lipids are non polar. like dissolves like with regard to polarity.
however polarity and solubility are relative. a solvent like ethanol dissolves a wide range of organic molecules considered both polar and nonpolar.
the most direct way to answer the question you are asking would be to determine your molecule of interest (whatever it is in the Reishi that makes the magic) and its polarity (or lack thereof) and compare that to your solvent.
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There is no one answer to this question. I would say just try it and see what happens
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if you extract directly into the MCT, then everything you extract will be in your MCT.
doesn’t mean your target will be.
…but it is just as likely** to be there as it would be if you performed either an alcoholic or aqueous extraction first, and then did the solvent transfer you propose.
** not a chemist.
if a chemist tells you different, believe them, not me.
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Thank you for detailed response. This is most helpful in understanding what I need to research (ie polarity of individual molecules of interest). Great stuff - “like dissolves like with regard to polarity”!
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Figured as much, but that really is the fun of experimenting!!!
Here is a pic of 2x 2.5g Reishi powder extract in MCT. First was 40 mins @ 110C directly in MCT (left) and second (right) was 15 min ethanol wash then distilled before boil off ethanol in MCT. Alcohol version had a bit of precipitates in bottom of flask after MCT combine but thought it could be water solubles from 5% in etoh.
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alcohol will absolutely pick up stuff that is not lipid soluble. even 200 proof.
what are you referring to when you say “distilled”?
I assume you mean “recovered most of your ethanol via distillation”?
and “then boiled the rest off”?
we wanna know how it all ends up!
Sorry, just an aspiring hobbyist. You are absolutely correct in your translation. Remove about 90% of etoh under vacuum first and then boil off rest in open flask. More about safely handling vapor then recovering solvent.
Will do! If i was trying to create a “full spectrum” version of this for candy, would it make sense to do alcohol wash first before hot water? Perhaps to break down material to release more water solubles? If my recipe used coconut oil, would a lipid wash yield anything perhaps? Of course need to test.
As for Reishi, Triterpenes and Beta-D-glucans are base constituents that I am after:
http://www.medicinabiomolecular.com.br/biblioteca/pdfs/Biomolecular/mb-0223.pdf
“Red Reishi is primarily composed of complex carbohydrates called water-soluble high
molecular weight Polysaccharides, triterpeniods, Organic Germanium, Adenosine, proteins, amino acids and Vitamins:
Polysaccharides: Beta-D-glucan polysaccharides(beta-glucan polysaccharides)
Sterols: Ergosterol
Fungal lysozyme
Proteinase
Triterpenes: Ganoderic acids
Other constiuents: Riboflavin, ascorbic acid, and amino
acids,Lipids,Alkaloids,Glucosides,Coumarins,Volatile oil.”
How would I go about finding polarity on these?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ganoderic_acid
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beta-glucan
Thanks!
id honestly just start googling them, something to the effect of " ____ solubility in ethanol"
however your link says they are water soluble, so that sounds like a solid move. Id think that ethanol would pick up all of that stuff too though.
im thinking what might work well would be to test it by its effects. try your alcohol extract, see if the effects are there, try your coconut oil extract and see if has all the effects, etc.
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I’d say they are both pretty polar molecules based on the amount of O and OH groups present. But I’m an uneducated swine.
Should dissolve in alcohols.
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I found a really great resource:
https://www.sigmaaldrich.com/life-science/nutrition-research/learning-center/plant-profiler.html
" Each Plant Profile contains:
- Synonyms and common names, and related terms
- Mechanisms of action for the plant’s pharmacological properties
- Mechanism of action for the plant’s pharmacodynamic properties
- Our bioactives found within each plant
- References with links to PubMed abstracts
The Plant Profiler enables food scientists, alternative medicine researchers, plant biotechnologists and nutrition scientists to gain a better understanding of their plant of interest and find our bioactive compounds for future research studies."
Looking at structure i would expect the triterpenes to be well soluble in ethanol and MCT, while the glucans would definitely be water soluble but possibly more limited in ethanol, and very low solubility in MCT.
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