A solvent extractor system for the rapid extraction of lipids and trace bioactive micronutrients in oilseeds

A low-cast laboratory extractor has been designed and constructed that sele ctively extracts polar and non-polar components from oilseeds and other mat rices. The extractor uses available high-performance liquid chromatography laboratory equipment for pumping the solvent into the extractor. Pressure, temperature, and valving arrangements are automatically controlled by comme rcially available components. Advantages of this system include low initial investment, reduced solvent consumption, shorter extraction times, quantit ative lipid recovery, use of multiple extraction solvents, and reduction in cost per sample. The method has broader applications that include extracti on of trace components from a variety of matrices, for example, the extract ion of pesticides from foods and polychlorobiphenyls from soil.:lass separa tion of components from different matrices can be achieved easily by select ion of solvents with the appropriate polarity characteristics. Very small s amples can be extracted simply by changing cell size or by adding an inert material to the cell to fill the void volume. Analyte collection can be acc omplished by collecting in a test tube with an appropriate solvent, or on a solid-phase material. Optimization of extraction rimes, number of extracti ons, matrices, and solvent used is described. Neutral lipids were extracted from peanut meal in 70 min by the rapid extraction method compared to 1440 min required to extract the comparable amount of neutral lipids from a sim ilar sample by the Soxhlet extraction method. Paper no. J9029 in JAOCS 76, 1461-1466 (December 1999).