Extractor for the Extraction of Rotenone from Derris elliptica
Author : Bufi, Arnold Sabroso
Major Adviser : Acda, Reynaldo I.
Committee Members : Arquiza, Apollo C.; Movillon, Jovita L.
Year : 1994
Month : April
Type : Thesis
Degree: BS
Related Articles:
Keywords:
This manuscript can be accessed:
Abstract
A large volume extractor based on soxhlet extraction was designed and fabricated for the extraction of rotenone from 500 grams feed of Derris elliptica roots. The extractor was tested in comparison to the laboratory soxhlet extractor.
The effect of moisture content of Derris roots on percent rotenone yield was determined using the laboratory soxhlet extractor. Roots dried up to 7% gave a percent rotenone yield of 2.15% while Derris roots with moisture content of 44% gave a significantly lower percent rotenone yield of 0.85%.
Results of the preliminary testing on the large volume extractor showed the effect of extraction time. Extraction times of 12, 24 and 48 hours were done on Derris elliptica roots from two sources, from Bicol and Laguna. The extraction on the Bicol sourced roots gave an increasing percent rotenone yield of 0.05% and 0.627% at 12 and 24 hours respectively. Percent rotenone yield after 48 hours dropped to 0.568 %. Laguna sourced roots gave a uniform trend of increasing percent rotenone yield. Percent rotenone yield at 12, 24 and 48 hours was 0.242%. 0.455 and 2.264% respectively. The laboratory soxhlet extractor gave percent rotenone yield of 2.63% and 2.15% for the Laguna and Bicol sourced roots, respectively. The efficiency of the designed extractor was found to be higher on the Laguna sourced roots to than the Bicol sourced roots at 26.5 %. The low efficiency can be attributed to insufficient extraction time.
The solvent recovery on the Bicol sourced roots was found to be 81 % solvent recovery, while only 68 % of the solvent was recovered on the Laguna sourced roots.
Further studies on the equipment are recommended. thorough performance evaluation could be done to improve the efficiency of the designed extractor. Improvements on the prototype could be done such as jacketting of the vessel containing the extract, installing of level indicator on the vessel containing the roots to monitor the flowrate of the solvent and installing stirrer on the roots’ vessel to determine the effect of agitation. Moreover, a more accurate analysis utilizing the HPLC method could be employed other than the Goodhue colorimetric method used in this study to obtain more accurate data on the percent rotenone yield.
Go back to Research Abstracts