Elfspice's Compleat Acacia Extraction Guide

xylene/emulsion. I defatted 2 more times with naptha(80ml).
Then I basified with NaOH, when it was about half way threw I added some
naptha and kept basifying until it turned a slippery black type colour. Then I
separated the naptha with the emulsion and added 80ml of warm naptha. I
separated that naptha/emulsion and added another 80ml of warm naptha.
Again I separated and kept the naptha/emulsion.
Now I took the naptha/emulsion and added some PH 8 distilled water and
threw away the water. This got rid of most of the emulsion, I put the rest in a
graduated cylinder to further separate. I washed the naptha 2 more times with
PH 8 dH2O.
I evaporated the naptha via fan and dish to reveal .4grams (400mg)of white
fluffy crystals. By this time the second soak of root bark was ready to be further
extracted so I put that through a cheese cloth and cotton funnel and then put
more acidic water with the root bark.
I defatted this time with only naptha 3 times. Basified and extracted and
washed just as before. I evaporated this to find .22grams of crystals. I extracted
the last of the acidified water by filtering, defatting, basifying, added naptha,
washed naptha and evaporated just as before to get .06grams of crystals.
I did this whole extraction in under a day, and my yield tells me I really don't
have to wait as long as some teks say. My total yield was .68grams of spice from
86.4g of mimosa root bark. That's .4grams the first one, .22 the second and .06
the third one.
As you can see the last extract is low but not completely insignificant. If I were
doing an extraction with a different acid like say acetic(vinegar) acid I would
have combined my extracts and boiled down to about half or 1/4th it's original
volume, but since I used HCl I decided it would be better to do each separately.
Photographs of Mimosa Hostilis Extraction