Organic Molecule-caffeine Biological & Biomedical Sciences Essay

Caffeine
Name
Institutional Affiliation
Caffeine
History
The word caffeine was derived from the Arabic term qahweh. The background of the word echoes the spread of Coffee into Europe through Turkey, where coffee plants were planted in the sixth century. Coffee started to be common in Europe in the 18th century. By that period, farms have been developed in Indonesia and West Indies, and by the 19th century, coffee had developed to be the largest crop in the world. The first isolation of caffeine from Coffee was in 1819. The caffeine can also found in other plants, including tea, which was used in China for many decades where it has been alleged revealed by the Chinese emperor; Cocoa and chocolate produces; kola nuts which was chewed by local people in West Africa for many decades. Currently, Cola nuts are used in the preparation of cola drinks and the guarana seeds. In addition, the caffeine availability of coffee beans differs according to the types of coffee trees. Most of the beans from Coffee Arabica grown, particularly in South America, contain approximately 1.2 % caffeine content.
Manufacture
Caffeine was first isolated from beans into pure white powder around the 1820s. Currently, caffeine is extracted and used to create different products that are used each day. The manufacturing of caffeine from coffee to create a decaffeinated and a caffeine residue can be done using various methods. Some of the ways are not used currently because of environmental effects, health risks, and taste changes that were linked with the solvents such as benzene and Chloroform. Three major methods have been successfully used in the extraction of Caffeine.
Water Extraction
The procedure to extract caffeine from coffee beans using water was initially established in the 1930s in Switzerland but was spread as the Swiss Water Process Company. In the company, beans are saturated in hot water to isolate the caffeine and some water-soluble substances from beans (Vuong & Roach, 2014). The beans are removed, while water is sieved to isolate the caffeine, harvesting a caffeine-free green coffee residual. Then the coffee decaffeinated green residual is used to clean another set of coffee beans. As the green coffee residue is ready mixed with a solvent of the coffee beans, only the caffeine is isolated from the first bunch of beans, minus removing any of the taste and oils from the beans. The cleaning phase is repeated until all the caffeine has been isolated from the beans.
Organic Solvent Extraction
Organic Solvent Extraction is the general process of manufacturing caffeine from coffee beans, by the use of an organic solvent such as Chloroforms to clean the beans. The beans are moistened in a spinning cylinder for at least 25 minutes to expose their apertures, and then they are washed often for some hours using an organic solvent such as dichloromethane Cláudio, et. al 2013). These organic solvents were both approved by the USA Food and Drug Administration for the extraction of caffeine from coffee. The caffeine can be removed from the water as it saturates the solution. During this moment, the caffeine isolated from the beans dissolves into the organic solvent, quite than the beans. After cleaning, beans are steamed again to remove the solvent through evaporation, leaving behind the caffeine as a white powder. Lastly, the beans are dried ou...