Did you get it? .....the concept of liquid-liquid extraction?

Liquid-liquid extraction is based on the transfer of a solute substance from one liquid phase into another liquid phase according to the solubility.

Extraction becomes a very useful tool if you choose a suitable extraction solvent.
You can use extraction to separate a substance selectively from a mixture, or to remove unwanted impurities from a solution.

In the practical use, usually one phase is a water or water-based (aqueous) solution and the other an organic solvent which is immiscible with water.

 

 

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Other questions you may have:

(?) What kind of extraction solvents are commonly used in a laboratory?
(?) What kind of apparatus are used?

-->> See Section 2: "Apparatus and techniques"

(?) Should I do the extraction once or many times?

-->> See Section 3: "200 mL x 1 vs 100 mL x 2"

(?) If a compound is insoluble in a solvent, can I change its solubility?

-->> See Section 4: "Chemically active (acid-base) extraction"

Use the menu bar (below) to go to other parts of the separation/isolation tutorial.

Organic Web Chem University of Alberta