Published Paper Details:

Nicotine is found in tobacco plant, Nicotiana tabacum L. This plant comes from the nightshade family with red peppers,eggplant, tomatoes and potatoes being the other members. In this study, Nicotine was extracted from tobacco leaf using three laboratory methods- Filtration, Solvent extraction and Crystallization. The percentage yield determined after the whole extraction method was 2.47 %. This percentage yield validates the reports from literature that the amount of nicotine in tobacco leaf is between 0.3% - 5%. More so, the very small nicotine investigated depicts a significant loss of product throughout the procedure which is due to formation of emulsions and not due to washing thoroughly with ether to extract maximum yield and the multiple repetition of the filtration process. For the purposes of identification and verification of the nicotine, other physical properties were determined, such as Molecular Weight (162.23 g/mol), Melting Point (-79 oC), Boiling Point (247 oC), Density (1.01 gcm-3) and Refractive Index (1.53). Also, the Optical Rotation [á]D of nicotine (-168.5o) at the temperature of 293.15 K was determined.