by flash boiling the absorbed water in the tobacco, I have seen increases in total yield from the tobacco of greater than 25%. But, even more importantly, the elimination of H2O from the oil, and subsequent fine filtration/settling of the oil to remove (now) undissolved sodium carbonate...
I have taken one new sideline 'experiment' with the initial tobacco preparation that I hope will dramatically increase the extraction efficiency of the alkaloids from the tobacco matrix.
zyxel-nsa210.lilu2.ch/MyWeb/public/.../Q10%20in%20solanesol.pdf
discusses the Microwave-assisted...
I added an additional 50ml of basic water to the 'already extracted' tobacco, and let it sit for 5 days. Partly to ensure that the water was taken up, through the oil coating everything, but mostly because of lack of time to get back to it.
The water was taken up quite readily, and the tobacco...
I finally got around to extracting and concentrating the alkaloids from the 20g of tobacco.
I used a nonpolar solvent with a known high partition co-efficient 3 times on the tobacco, washed the resulting solution 3 times with 1/2 volume of basic water, then extracted to acidic water, washed...
doh, should read "de"protonation throughout, not protonation. That comes later.
a couple days ago, I added 10ml of basic water (78g/l sodium bicarbonate solution pH 12.3) to 25grams of finely ground tobacco and left it in an enclosed container.
Today, on opening the container the entire mass was barely moist with a strong earthy smell of ammonia, and the tobacco has gone...
my reasoning to reduce the initial basic water volume is to maximise the transfer at a 'poor' partition coefficient of 4:1, thereby increasing overall yield.
if you use 40 ml of water and 40 ml of oil, then the most you will get is 75% transfer.
if you use 20 ml of water and 40ml of oil, then...