A Soxhlet extractor is a piece of laboratory equipment which is designed to extract substances with a low solubility in the extracting solvent. It was invented by Franz von Soxhlet in 1879 and was originally designed for the extraction of a lipid from a solid material, however is not limited to this application. Typically, a Soxhlet extraction is required where the desired compound has a limited solubility in a solvent, and the impurity is insoluble in that solvent. If the desired compound has a significant solubility in a solvent then a simple filtration can be used to separate the compound from the insoluble substance.
Soxhlet extractor
