What are botanical extractions?
What it is: Concentrated plant-derived actives (flavonoids, polyphenols, vitamins, etc. These extracts typically contain antioxidant, antimicrobial, and soothing molecules. The principle behind solvent extraction is extremely basic. The goal is to use a liquid (solvent) to dissolve (solvate) a target molecule or group of compounds (solute) and to wash them out of the solid plant material. The solvent is then separated from the solute in order to concentrate the solute.Plant extracts are obtained via extraction from various parts of raw plants, e. Plant extracts are obtained from whole plants or parts of plants (fruits, leaves, roots, bark, stems, branches, seeds or flowers).
What is the first step in the extraction process?
During the extraction process, two different major steps can be identified. The first one is the impregnation of the solid by the solvent, which can be performed by adequate stirring, and optimised by tuning different parameters, such as temperature or solid/liquid ratio. Generally, you will be doing an extraction to separate the organic product (in an organic solvent such as ether or ethyl acetate) from an aqueous layer. Depending on your product, you may want to retain either the aqueous layer or the organic layer. Use density to navigate which layer is which.