Question

ORGANIC CHEMISTRY I LAB QUESTION (do not use methods more advanced)

“Centurion Base to chemist [your name]; come in [your name]. Are you reading me, do you have your ears on?”

“I copy, I read you loud and clear. [your name] here.”

“We need you at Falcon Roost staging point. We have identified a new plant that is excreting a strange syrup-like material. There is evidence that it might be toxic. We need you to check it out. Over.”

So, you are being called to a location where a potentially toxic plant material has been found. But you are not on Earth!

You got here with the first ship and crew in the second colonization wave of the planet Kepler-1638b. It is the second planet around the star Kepler-1638. You are almost 2500 light-years from Earth. Kepler-1638b is an Earth-like planet but with a different biological evolution. So, all plants and animals must be cautiously studied to determine their value and their danger. You are the only organic chemist on this mission and your job now is to isolate and purify the various substances made by this plant. (Then you will hand off these substances to the mission biologist who will test them for toxicity.

Tell me exactly how you will isolate, separate, and purify the various substances made and excreted by this strange alien plant.

Answer 1

We can use here the natural product extraction techniques. Though the extraction/isolation of natural products is chalenging task. But we can extract / isolate natural products fron plants by liquid-liquid extraction method using various polarity of solvents. The isolated material can be purified by distillation techniques or chromatographic tecniques like cplumn chromatography, HPLC, UPLC, LCMS, GC, etc. The same can be applied for the isolation, seperation and purification of strange alien plant.