[mardybum]

Hey all. I just recently did a simple a/b extraction, and quite enjoyed it. I wanted to pursue my enjoyment in chemistry and thought a caffiene extraction could be another simple procedure to do. I don't want to decaffinate the beans or leaves, but instead want to pull out the pure caffeine from them. Problem is, I can't find very much info on it. Would anyone be able to link me to a tutorial on it or give me some info on how it's done. I found two tutorials, one on getting pure caffeine, the other on decaffinating beans, but I like to read through a couple of techniques to get the general idea. Also, could you guys reccomend some other simple extractions I could do?

From the one pure caffiene extraction tutorial, (first result on google from "caffeien extraction"), it seems pretty straight forward, but, I have a few questions. What are these compounds? Can they be aquired easily: "1 M Na2CO3 solution", "1,1,1 - trichloroethane" and "Na2SO4 crystals".

Thanks for any help, much appreciated. 

[allanf]

Na2CO3 is sodium carbonate, its sometimes known as washing soda
Na2SO4 is sodium sulfate is a drying agent, sometimes called glauber's salt
You should be able to find both those around, they're fairly common, as for the solvent, 1,1,1-trichloroethane, I believe its been banned from use as it eats a hole in the ozone layer, you could probably substitute chloroform or DCM (dichloromethane) and would work about the same.

I heard a while ago that you can extract caffeine from coffee grounds by using concentrated ethanol, and then purify the caffeine by sublimation, but I'm not sure.

[allanf]

I did a quick google and turned up this rather straight-forward example of an extraction (from tea) and purification:
http://www.pharmainfo.net/exclusive/technical/extraction_of_caffeine_from_tea_leaves/

hope it helps

[mardybum]

Awesome  , thanks alot, that procedure looks great. 

[Yggdrasil]

http://www.chemicalforums.com/index.php?topic=7094.0

Here's an old post with links to some more procedures for extracting caffeine from tea leaves.

[mardybum]

Thanks YGG! 

Would a solvent that evaps clean like shellite or white spirits also be suitable?

[Yggdrasil]

Shellite and white spirits would probably be too nonpolar to extract the caffeine from the aqueous phase.  You need a fairly polar organic solvent.  I used 1-propanol.  Other good choices would include dichloromethane/methylene chloride, acetone, ethyl acetate, or 2-propanol/isopropyl alcohol.