We know that menthol was isolated from peppermint, carotene was found in carrots, and caffeine was extracted from coffee beans. During the last three centuries, chemists found tens of thousands of various compounds in plants, fruits, and fungi, but each of those discoveries was tantamount to finding a needle in a haystack. Indeed, the natural samples chemists worked with were complex mixtures that contained just minuscule quantities of target compounds.
How exactly did the chemists manage to isolate them? Which techniques did they use? How did they characterize the compounds they obtained? In this semilab, we will master basic methods (distillation, extraction, sublimation, chromatography, etc.) chemists used (and are currently using) for isolation of individual compounds from complex mixtures and for the characterization of the substances obtained.