I want to isolate potassium from bananas, can anyone help?
Monday, June 29th, 2009 at
8:01 PM
I am looking for the method and EXACT solvents needed in order to take a bunch of bananas mash them up and then extract only pure potassium out of them.
Can anyone help me out on this one?
Thanks for any help you can give.
Filed under: Potassium In Food
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At about 10 milligrams per banana, you're talking a lot of bananas, and that doesn't even count the extraction and purification loss you'll have.
Why not try wood ash. It's easier.
dare i ask why?
the amount of pottasium in bananas is extremely small and wouldn't be worth the effort!!
"Pure" potassium is a metal that spontaneously forms KOH and hydrogen gas upon contact with atmospheric water, and that will burst into flame if it comes in contact with liquid water. You will have to isolate it as a salt.
If all you want to do is analyze the potassium content in bananas, the link below takes you to a "Journal of Food Composition and Analysis" article in which the authors analyzed metals, including potassium, in tropical fruit using ICP-AES (inductively-coupled plasma-atomic emission spectroscopy).