Introduction: Lycopene is a carotene because of its carbon and hydrogen composition. It is red in color and a member of the carotenoid family. Members of the carotenoid family play integral roles in plants.
They use the absorption of light to aid in photosynthesis, and protect chlorophyll from damage. In humans, Lycopene acts as an antioxidant. Lycopene is found in various fruits and vegetables. The purpose of this experiment is the isolation of Lycopene from tomato paste.
This is done using liquid/solid extraction and chromatography.Once the Lycopene is isolated, IR spectroscopy will determine its percentage actually obtained by chromatography. Procedure: A massed sample of 1. 012g of tomato paste was placed in a 125mL Erlenmeyer flask.
To the flask, 5mL of 50:50 hexane-acetone was added into the flask. After the 50:50 addition the flask was capped and shaken. After the settling of the sediments, the liquid portion was pipetted in a 50mL Erlenmeyer flask. The process of separating the liquid from the solid was repeated for a total of four times.
To the extracted liquid, 5mL of NaCl was added and put into a separatory funnel to remove the water layer. 5mL of 10% K2CO3 was added to the extracted organic layer, and then placed into the separatory funnel for the removal of the water layer. NaCl was then again added to the organic layer, and put through the separatory funnel to again remove more of the water layer. After the water removal using the separatory funnel took place, MgSO4 was added until clumping subsided.
This addition was done to remove any access water that the previous processes did not remove.A chromatography column was prepared using Alumina and cotton. It was then attached to a ring stand and placed in a clamp to ensure that it stayed as vertical as possible. Hexane was used to wet the column, and to ensure that the column did not run dry during the chromatography process.
The extracted organic layer was then pipetted into the column, and later eluted with hexane. The collection of eluent was held in a series of test tubes. The extracted Lycopene was placed into a screw cap vial, and placed into the freezer for later analysis.
