Student Comments 2007: Extraction of Caffeine from Caffeinated Beverages
It may be an interesting idea to have each student pick a caffeine source from the website provided, then compare the result of caffeine to see if it matched that of the website and note similarities an differences. AP
In the Caffeine from Tea, Extension lab you are asked to bring in something from home to extract caffeine from. The best choice is a liquid, otherwise more steps are involved in extracting it. If a liquid is used, you can jump right into the experiment with the same procedure as the week before. Also, bringing a drink with a higher amount of caffeine will give you more product. Since the caffeine itself is so light, your extract can be easily lost or blown away so having more of it would be best. BH
In the caffeine from tea extension lab, when choosing your caffeine source I would advise to stick with the energy drink family. The quality and quantity of the caffeine you extract is superb. EP
For the caffeine tea extension lab, toincrease the quantity of product recovered at the end of the extraction, Iwould advise to choose a caffeine source that has a high amount of caffeine.
I have a suggestion to improve this experiment. I think it would work it better if you were provided with the same caffeine source during the extension. There was so much variance between the sources that some people got great sample and others (myself) did not. If we all are provided with a good source, it will test our technique skills better, I feel. CR
Also, whenyou get to next week's caffeine extraction experiment, do NOT use coffee---much too problematic. PN
I do not recommend using milk based products, reason why is that upon adding the base, the milk will curd. The solid curd will need to be filtered out. and the problem is that there is alot of solid, so removing it will take time since the Buchner filter will clog up after so much solid has been collected. I believe it took me three Buchner filtrations to completely separate the liquid from the solid.
-Ricardo Rodriguez
When doing the extention this lab make sure to use a caffeine source with an actual recorded value of caffeine. I realized almost a bit too late that it was not easy to find the actual caffeine content of my source and this would have been a problem since I would not have anything to compare my results to. YM
When doing the caffeine from tea, extension lab, if you have a caffeine source that does not have to be boiled like the tea bags, do not add water or you will dilute the caffeine. Also stick to highly caffeinated drinks like coke so you can get more caffeine extraction. MFL