[socalfusions]

Anacardic are chemical compounds found in the shell of the cashew nut. As they are closely related to urushiol, they also cause an allergic skin rash on contact, known as urushiol-induced contact dermatitis.

What are the most commonly used methods to extract anacardic acids from cashew nut shells and the cashews themselves (if possible)? It is said that anacardic acids from cashew nuts have been effectively used to fight tooth abscesses, but seeing as how the anacardic acid from the shell would cause a rash similar to poison ivy that seems out of the question, leaving the cashew nut itself (which likely has some amount of anacardic acid, albeit less) to be the only option and assumingly orally digested.

Would it be possible to extract anacardic acid from cashew nuts shells/nuts and then isolate it even further to remove the chemical compound that causes the skin rash?

This article describing the use of supercritical carbon dioxide as a method of isolation is the most successful one I have found so far: http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/jf00012a022

[SABRY]

1. If you are using super-critical fluid extraction (SFE) method of CO2, you will recover all the oil and fatty acid.

2. If this acid is a fatty acid then the normal method of removing is by the addition of caustic - soap making process.

3. Fatty acid can be recovered by steam stripping - as in most fatty oil refinery (if you are interested to reover the acid)

[socalfusions]

1. If you are using super-critical fluid extraction (SFE) method of CO2, you will recover all the oil and fatty acid.

2. If this acid is a fatty acid then the normal method of removing is by the addition of caustic - soap making process.

3. Fatty acid can be recovered by steam stripping - as in most fatty oil refinery (if you are interested to reover the acid)

Thank you for your response, from my understanding the SFE method will include the poison ivy related components intact as it recovers all the oils/fatty acids. It appears that method 2 or 3 would be the most ideal way to isolate anacardic acid, with 3 being more favorable if your desire is to use the acid for other applications, I'm still assuming that all of these methods, although they isolate the acid, still leave the skin irritable attributes of anacardic acid in the end product?

[Arkcon]

Once you know, or at least have a good idea, what the various compounds are, you can separate the oil extract on an column, or perform HPLC purification.  There are lipid columns for HPLC reverse phase, and you can always use a normal phase HPLC column, or pour a silica column for separation.