page_title: Soxhlet extractor
section_title: Operation
hierarchical_section_title: Soxhlet extractor / Operation
caption_attribution_description: Soxhlet Extractor. Fruit extraction is in progress.
context_page_description: A Soxhlet extractor is a piece of laboratory apparatus
  invented in 1879 by Franz von Soxhlet. It was originally designed for the extraction of a lipid from a solid material. Typically, Soxhlet extraction is used when the desired compound has a limited solubility in a solvent, and the impurity is insoluble in that solvent. It allows for unmonitored and unmanaged operation while efficiently recycling a small amount of solvent to dissolve a larger amount of material.
context_section_description: The solvent is heated to reflux. The solvent vapour travels up a distillation arm, and floods into the chamber housing the thimble of solid. The condenser ensures that any solvent vapour cools, and drips back down into the chamber housing the solid material. The chamber containing the solid material slowly fills with warm solvent. Some of the desired compound dissolves in the warm solvent. When the Soxhlet chamber is almost full, the chamber is emptied by the siphon. The solvent is returned to the distillation flask.  The thimble ensures that the rapid motion of the solvent does not transport any solid material to the still pot.  This cycle may be allowed to repeat many times, over hours or days.
  During each cycle, a portion of the non-volatile compound dissolves in the solvent. After many cycles the desired compound is concentrated in the distillation flask. The advantage of this system is that instead of many portions of warm solvent being passed through the sample, just one batch of solvent is recycled.
  After extraction the solvent is removed, typically by means of a rotary evaporator, yielding the extracted compound. The non-soluble portion of the extracted solid remains in the thimble, and is usually discarded.
caption: Fruit extraction in progress. The sample is placed in the thimble.
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