Extracting fat from ice creams

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Myjt
Posts: 3
Joined: Mon Apr 23, 2018 8:34 am
Occupation: Parent

Extracting fat from ice creams

Post by Myjt »

I read the science project here on science buddies on extracting fats from nuts, chips, and chocolate using acetone. I wondered if that would also be possible with ice cream, so as to determine how much fat one brand has versus another? Any help would be appreciated, thanks
rpeteranderl
Posts: 14
Joined: Sun Dec 03, 2017 5:02 pm
Occupation: Teacher

Re: Extracting fat from ice creams

Post by rpeteranderl »

I don't think it would work. The food samples in the project that you saw are all very low in water content. It's more or less dry stuff and some oils. The 100% acetone will be able to dissolve the oils and extract them, so you can look at what's missing in the mass of the sediment, and what the mass of the residue is after you evaporate the acetone extract.
For simplicity, let's say that ice-cream is water, sugar and fat. Acetone and water do mix, so you would be able to extract the water. To keep the volumes reasonable, and to make sure that you get a large amount of extracted materials, you might end up with a 1:1 ratio of ice cream to acetone. Sugar probably probably will also dissolve in the water/acetone mix. The fat may or may not dissolve in the acetone/water mix. All in all, I don't think you would get a nice separation with acetone and ice cream.
You could try a different solvent. Chloroform certainly would work - it does not mix with water but dissolves fats, so you could do a liquid extraction. But it is pretty nasty and not easily found. Xylene is also an option, and you might be able find it in your local Home Depot in the paint thinner section. In general, anything that can remove oil paints are worth a consideration for your project.
Myjt
Posts: 3
Joined: Mon Apr 23, 2018 8:34 am
Occupation: Parent

Re: Extracting fat from ice creams

Post by Myjt »

Thank you so much for taking the time to answer my question. I was so hoping that using the acetone would work. Thank goodness I found this site...My next question if you don't mind. Just to be clear, if I was to use chloroform or xylene, I would mix it with the ice cream in a 1:1 or 1:2 concentration and how I can determine which ice cream has the most fats is the one in the sample that has the least weight because more fat has been dissolved? For example, if I was testing 3 types of vanilla ice creams, I would combine each type of ice cream in a beaker (3 beakers total) with the chloroform or xylene. I'd let the liquid in the beakers evaporate, leaving the remaining mass. The beaker with the lowest in weight would be the one with the most fat?
Myjt
Posts: 3
Joined: Mon Apr 23, 2018 8:34 am
Occupation: Parent

Re: Extracting fat from ice creams

Post by Myjt »

To Rpeteranderl, I read and reread your answer to my initial question. You said that you thought the "fat may or may not dissolve in the acetone/water mix and that you didn't think I would be able to "get a nice separation with acetone and ice cream". To test this out, I did the experiment with 2 different vanilla ice creams. One high in fat and the other low in fat. When I combined the ice creams in their individual beakers, using a 1:2 concentration (10 ml. ice cream and 20ml acetone), I did get get a nice separation. The liquified/melted ice cream turned into a solid gelatinous mass. I left the beakers out and let the acetone evaporate completely. I then weighed the beakers containing the ice cream mass and there was a 3 g. difference between the high and low fat ice creams. The higher fat ice cream being the higher in weight. I also tested acetone mixed with a sugar liquid and that mixture completely evaporated. So, since ice cream is mostly made of water, sugar, and fat and I don't have to worry that the sugar has addded to the weight of the ice cream mass that remained in the experiment, would you think that acetone would be okay for this project? To determine which ice cream contains more fat?Or do you feel that the use of xylene would be better. If yes to this, can you please give me input to my 2nd question above?
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