[Nosforit]

Hello,

I'd like to take up collecting useful compounds and elements from nature as a hobby. Last weekend I read about how to get potash from ash and tried it out in the kitchen. I learned quite a lot from this simple experiment and was reminded of how much fun I used to have in the chemistry classes. I also began wondering what other useful chemicals I can extract from my environment, and how I can further purify them.

The experimental route would be the one I'm interested in, but I'd very much like to find out about laboratory techniques I could use in these experiments and how to implement them simply and safely. Does anyone know of any resources fitting my needs?

[Borek]

Not sure if it will fit your needs, but have you heard about "caveman chemistry"?

[Nosforit]

Oh, so that's the name of that wonderful book! I ran across it, but lost the link. Yes, I'm ordering it instantly! 

[billnotgatez]

This is just a thought since Caveman Chemistry is one of my favorites.

If you live near Hampden-Sydney, VA – you might want to take his course.
Maybe you could take it online. Let us know if you find out that he does.

[UnintentionalChaos]

I've isolated curcumin from turmeric powder which was very nice (also makes a good indicator). You can try vanillin from vanilla beans but that is a bit pricey (extract is cheaper). I imagine tannic acid from sumac leaves or oak galls would be quite do-able. I'm working on isolating the pigments from safflower, but the red dye is only 0.3-0.6% of the petals' dry weight and I don't have much in the way of petals so far. You could try getting salicilin from willow bark and breaking it up for salicylic acid. Piperine from black pepper is not too hard to do, but a bit dodgy sounding since it can be used in drug manufacture. Grow your own indigo and isolate the dye (I'm into dyes if you haven't noticed). You could probably do steam distillations of a lot of herbs if you have a distillation setup (lavender is rich in oils, orange peel even more so (mostly limonene)). The ash of seaweed should contain lots of iodides which can be converted to iodine. The dry distillation of hardwood yields mostly acetic acid and methanol (plus a heap of tars). The list is almost endless if you keep looking.

[billnotgatez]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigo_dye
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigo_%28disambiguation%29

UnintentionalChaos - Which plant do you grow and where do you get the seeds?

[UnintentionalChaos]

Where you live becomes an issue here. Indigofera tinctoria is only possible with fairly long summers and hot temperatures. Otherwise, you won't produce much dye. www.superseeds.com sells the seeds (I have ordered from them before). An alternative for more northern growers is polygonum tinctoria, but the seeds are not easy to locate. Gram for gram, these two species have roughly the same amount of dye in the leaves. A third usable plant is called woad and is in the cabbage family. The dye content of the leaves is significantly less (1/6 to 1/10^th) than the above species with the bonus of it being hard to kill and easy to grow. In some localities it is a noxious weed. These seeds are available through that website as well. You can also synthesize the dye yourself (though not in great yields (10-25% of theoretical I think), but avoiding high temperatures) by dissolving o-nitrobenzaldehyde into acetone and adding (slowly! The reaction should be quite exothermic) concentrated NaOH solution. Methods with higher yields require conditions much more suited to a well equipped lab.