How to extract caffeine from tea

Peterson School Cuajimalpa How to Extract Caffeine from Tea Irene Romn, Emilia Magaa, Fer Manzanares, Jos Horacio Rubio Karim Amortegui November 15th, 2013 9B

How to extract caffeine from tea

Introduction Tea is a hot beverage made out of crushed leaves of the tea plant. Tea contains caffeine which is a drug that is naturally produced in the leaves and seeds of many plants. Tea has only 1/2 to 1/3 as much caffeine as coffee. Caffeine affects the nervous system and its not good if it becomes an addiction, many people think that tea is better than coffee but in reality drinking tea is like drinking coffee, the only difference is that tea is made out of fruits or leaves. Our goal was to extract caffeine from tea, we did some research and found out that the best method is using methane chloride, but later we found out that it was really dangerous. We found out that water and alcohol could be used instead of methane chloride. Question How do you extract caffeine from tea? Hypothesis If we can find a way, that is safe and easy to decaffeinate tea Then caffeine would be removed from tea Because the caffeine molecules would have reacted and separated from the solution. Materials: 5 bags of tea (Black Tea) Water One beaker 65 ml of alcohol One thermometer One hot plate Cold water Graduated cylinder Procedure 1. Use distilled water and boil it with 5 tea bags in a beaker with a hot plate. 2. Wait until the water is in its boiling point and stop heating. 3. Cool the water to 20 with cold water on the outside or in a base with ice. 4. When the water is cold, mix the solution with 60% of the total amount of 100%, as the tea solution is 40% of it. 5. Leave some time with both liquid solutions to see if they separate into two layers. 6. Once separated, evaporate the solution to get the caffeine alone at the bottom. Results Figure 1. Experiment before boiling

Figure 2. Experiment after boiling

How to extract caffeine from tea

Discussion During the experiment we observerd that when we cooled the tea in cold water it changed colors from a see-through brown color to a stronger brown color this was beacuse we brewed the tea with water that was akaline, while tea is mildly acidic and the acidity takes some time to act on some of the pigments in the solution. Then, when we mixed the alcohol and tea it changed again to a see-through color. When we mixed the tea and the alcohol it also stared to bubble, then we left the tea on the separation funnel for about an hour and a half and when we came back there was a layer of withe liquid on the bottom of the funnel, and the brownish one was on top. At the end of our experiment, we saw that the remains were burned. We couldnt see anything concretely, so we deduced something. The caffeine is really sensitive to heat and as result, it was burned very easily while evaporating.

Conclusion After doing the experiment, we didnt obtain the results that we expected to. After evaporating the water and alcohol we thought the caffeine woud be the only thing left, but we were wrong. The remains of the experiment were burnt and there wasnt anything concrete, so we noticed that caffeine is really sensitive to heat and we could achieve the right result if we used the right materials, which was difficult to since they are really dangerous and some of them can cause cancer. We were right about the hypothesis because if we used the right materials, we could obtain the right results. In conclusion, we learned that extracting caffeine from tea is a really dangerous process and that there re different methods of doing it. Bibliography

"How Do You Decaffeinate Coffee and Tea?" YouTube. YouTube, 03 June 2013. Web. 14 No . 2013. "!"t#action of Caffeine f#o$ Tea." YouTube. YouTube, 2% &ct. 2012. Web. 14 No . 2013.

How to extract caffeine from tea

"Definition of Tea in !n'(i)*." Tea: Definition of Tea in Oxford Dictionary (British & World English). N.+., n.d. Web. 14 No . 2013. "Too !a), to -e T#ue." Tea Caffeine. N.+., n.d. Web. 1. No . 2013. "Caffeine and Tea / T*e !"ce((ent Tea Co$+an,." The Excellent Tea Co !any. N.+., n.d. Web. 1. No . 2013. *tt+011a$#ita. (ab.co.in1?)ub233b#c*2443)i$21453cnt22