Extraction of Plant Secondary Metabolites

Introduction

Selection, Collection, and Identification of Plant Material Drying and Grinding Extraction – Percolation and Soxhlet Extraction – Maceration – Choice of Solvent – Sample Preparation for Large-Scale Biological Screening – Preparation of Enriched Extracts (alkaloids, flavonoids, saponins)

General procedure for preparing extracts representing a range of polarities, including a virtually tannin- free chloroform extract

General fractionation procedure to obtain a precipitate of crude saponin from plants

General procedure to obtain alkaloidal extracts from crude plant material

Water extraction (decoction, infusion) Extraction artefacts Interfering compounds – Lipids – Plant pigments (carotenoids, chlorphyll) – Vegetable tannins – Platicizers