No matter how tobacco waste is treated, nicotine extraction will be carried out to avoid waste of resources. Nicotine is a major alkaloid in tobacco, present in the whole tobacco plant, and has a high content in tobacco leaves. Nicotine can be mixed in water at any ratio when the temperature is below 60°C. When the temperature reaches 100°C, it can evaporate with water vapor and is easily soluble in most organic solvents such as chloroform, benzene, ether, and petroleum ether. Nicotine has high volatility, but the volatility rate is low at room temperature.
Nicotine can be used as a plant insecticide in agriculture, with the advantages of rapid degradation. Currently, 40% nicotine sulfate is used to prepare insecticides for crops such as oil, vegetables, fruits, grains, and forage. Nicotine is also used in the development of high-tech products. In addition, in the pharmaceutical industry, it can be used to produce medicines for snake and insect bites, skin itching, and unknown swelling and pain. With the development of China's chemical, agricultural, and pharmaceutical industries, the market demand for nicotine is increasing.
Common methods for extracting nicotine from tobacco leaves include ion exchange, steam distillation, and extraction. The ion exchange method uses the water solubility of nicotine to extract the waste tobacco leaves with dilute acid, and the filtrate is adsorbed and enriched by strong acid ion exchange resin. The nicotine on the adsorbed resin is exchanged by alkali to obtain an aqueous solution containing free nicotine. The ion exchange method for extracting nicotine is complex, the operation cycle is long, and the resin is prone to poisoning, which is not conducive to industrial promotion.
Steam distillation is a traditional extraction method. The nicotine is distilled out with the steam by co-distilling the tobacco leaves with 100°C steam, and then condensed to extract the nicotine. The steam distillation method for extracting nicotine has a simple process and is easy to operate for the industrial production of nicotine, but it is inefficient and has large equipment. The purity of the obtained nicotine product is low, which cannot meet the market demand for high-purity nicotine, so it is rarely used in industrial production.
The solvent extraction method is to extract nicotine from the aqueous solution with a low boiling point solvent such as petroleum ether, ether, chloroform, etc. After separating the two phases, the organic solvent is distilled and concentrated to obtain nicotine. The process mainly includes four aspects: crushing of waste tobacco leaves, soaking in extracting liquid, extraction with organic solvent, and distillation. The solvent extraction method can extract nicotine with a purity of more than 40%, and the extraction rate of nicotine in tobacco leaves reaches 75%. If high-purity nicotine is required, it can be concentrated and purified on the basis of the above to obtain nicotine with a purity of more than 99%.
The solvent extraction method for extracting nicotine currently has a partial basis in industrial production, but in actual production, when nicotine is transferred from the organic phase to the aqueous phase for separation, an emulsion layer may be generated on the phase interface, resulting in production suspension. If you want to make the entire nicotine extraction process run normally, you need to be equipped with appropriate production processes and mechanical equipment. Guizhou Landerlee Extraction Technology Co., Ltd. is recommended by many customers.