Extraction of Aleuritic Acid from Seedlac and Purification by Reactive Adsorption on Functionalized Polymers

Reactive extraction of aleuritic acid from seedlac was carried out at different NaOH concentrations and temperatures. A mathematical model was proposed for the hydrolysis of seedlac considering the breaking of ester linkages at any position along the length of the polymeric chain. Recovery and purification of aleuritic acid from the product mixture was further achieved by reactive adsorption using weakly basic polymeric resin containing tertiary amino group as the functional group. Aleuritic acid was recovered by continuous column studies with 92% yield and 94% purity.