Sciencemadness Discussion Board

Communic acid from Juniper extract

D4RR3N - 30-10-2014 at 04:21

Hi hoping sombody on here might have some ideas, I'm looking to make an extract rich in communic acid from Juniper (Juniperus communis) which is a coniferous tree which contains this Diterpenoid. It is not necessary to isolate and purify the communic acid just to extract it. I can get Juniper leaf, berries or essential oil as a starting point. Anyone know what part of the tree this diterpenoid would be found in highest concentration and what solvents would be best to extract it?

NexusDNA - 1-11-2014 at 08:26

You probably have seen this already: http://www.mdpi.com/1420-3049/17/2/1448

Are you sure you can extract a reasonably pure compound using just a solvent? I can't find references for that. Try to find with the oil supplier how much communic acids there is in their product. Without acid/base workup or long, thick and tedious column chromatography I doubt you'll be able to make a relevant extraction from an essential oil.

essential oils

chemrox - 1-11-2014 at 16:14

That's too broad a generalization. As an example oil of bitter almond is mostly benzaldehyde. Oil of wintergreen is over 95% Me-salicylate. Whether isolating a compound from an oil source is relatively easy or difficult depends on many factors. A. Shulgin predicated a series of phenylethylamines on their essential sources. Celery oil, I believe, was among them. Here's a link to a paper on communic acids.

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&a...

[Edited on 2-11-2014 by chemrox]

D4RR3N - 2-11-2014 at 15:48

Pure communic acid is a solid so not sure it would exist in the essential oil. A solvent extract of leaf,berry or bark would contain it but not sure what part of the tree these diterpenoids are in highest concentration. I can easily get juniper berry's or juniper leaf.