2.4. Soxhlet extraction
In order to compute the efficiency of SFE, Soxhlet extraction was
carried out using n-hexane as the solvent. About 10 g of ground
muskmelon seeds were placed in a cellulose thimble and
transferred to a Soxhlet extractor.
The round bottom extraction flask was filled with 150 ml of n-hexane which was heated at 78 8C.
Extraction process was continuously run for 8 h. After completion
of an extraction, oil was recovered by evaporating solvent using
rotary evaporator (Bu ¨chi, UK) and residual solvent was removed by
flushing 99.9% nitrogen. The oil yield was determined in the same
way as in supercritical fluid extraction method as mentioned
earlier and the reported values were means of three determinations