Abstract
Owing to the solubility of lipins in ether and alcohol we have a basis for the isolation of these substances. To separate them from their ether and alcohol solution we have several methods. As a rule these methods are expensive as most of the solvent is lost, they require considerable time and in some of the methods heat is applied, a bad procedure on account of the labile nature of some of these substances.
I have devised a method which gives good results, allows the solvent to be regained and takes little time without using heat. It is based on the fact that lipins are insoluble in water. The method is as follows; to the ether or alcohol extract of the lipins add cold water containing 0.5 per cent. of sodium chloride, 1 till no further precipitation occurs. The water should be added slowly without shaking or stirring, otherwise some of the lipins will be emulsified. Any of the precipitate not coming to the surface may be obtained by filtration. 2 It will be found that this precipitate contains the lipins and if one wants to obtain the phospholipins from the precipitate, simply wash thoroughly with acetone until no residue is obtained, when the washings are evaporated to dryness. The acetone removes all the lipins except the phospholipins.
In the presence of much chromlipin (lipochrome) this method does not work so well as it requires from 12 to 24 hours for the insoluble lipins to separate out and as a rule the precipitate goes to the bottom of the container instead of rising to the surface. It appears from this observation that the presence of chromlipin in some way changes the physico-chemical conditions of the associated lipins.
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