Hello,
Doing a Syrian Rue alkaloid extraction for the first time, I am a bit insecure how to proceed... or if I messed something up.
I would greatly appreciate, if someone with experience can help me out.
Let me summarize what I did up to now:
1. I extracted 100g of (coarsely ground) Syrian Rue seeds 3 times with ~1l water (acidified with acetic acid).
2. I filtered twice, the second time through a coffee filter.
3. I boiled it down to around 200ml (forgot it on the stove to be honest)
4. i diluted it with dH2O to 500ml and added around Sodium Carbonate until the dark brown color had changed to a coffee-with-milk color, adding more does not change the color anymore (used around 3 teaspoons).
5. I put it in the fridge in a 500ml Erlenmeyer, after 8 hours, there is only a 1cm layer of light-brown suspension on the bottom. The rest of the liquid is still opaque dark brown. Carefully swirling around the liquid covers the flask's neck with a thin bright yellow layer.
I don't really want to decant now because it would leave me with around 100ml and I suspect a lot of alkaloids are still in there. The two "layers" have only a very slight color difference.
The solution seems saturated now if I add more soda it forms clumps on the ground.
Should I add more water and then more soda (or NaOH)?
Or is is just a low yield and I should continue as usual?
Regards,
and thanks in advance for a quick answer
