Usnic Acid Extraction From Lichen

In this video I extract usnic acid from the lichen usnea. Usnea is a widespead species of lichen with its most notable subspecies being the Old Man’s Beard lichen. Usnic acid has notable antibacterial properties, however, it shows a strong toxicity towards liver tissue and should not be ingested. Yield from this procedure can likely be improved by doing repeated solvent extractions, however the paper reported decreased yield from hot solvent washings surprisingly, but in any case a soxhlet would likely work well. The melting point test was also done crudely in this video, but since I lack the equipment to attain more accurate results it was an adequate substitute. With this video I tried to improve the overall production quality. In all my previous videos I had filmed and talked live during the reaction. But, in this video I had filmed all the clips and did a voice over in post. This gives the benefit of hindsight of the entire reaction allowing for more informative, brief dialogue and lets me focus more on taking nice shots, rather than the feeling of the being ’along for the ride’. I’m not sure if this is how I would like all my videos to be though, so I will probably have a mix of both styles. The paper I followed: Music: Gustav Mahler - Symphony No.1 in D major “Titan“ - III My Patreon: