Normally a solid material containing some of the desired compound is placed inside a thimble made from thick filter paper, which is loaded into the main chamber of the Soxhlet extractor. The Soxhlet extractor is placed onto a flask containing the extraction solvent. The Soxhlet is then equipped with a condenser.
The solvent is heated to reflux. The solvent vapour travels up a distillation arm, and floods into the chamber housing the thimble of solid. The condenser ensures that any solvent vapour cools, and drips back down into the chamber housing the solid material.
The chamber containing the solid material slowly fills with warm solvent. Some of the desired compound will then dissolve in the warm solvent. When the Soxhlet chamber is almost full, the chamber is automatically emptied by a siphon side arm, with the solvent running back down to the distillation flask. The thimble ensures that the rapid motion of the solvent does not transport any solid material to the still pot. This cycle may be allowed to repeat many times, over hours or days.
During each cycle, a portion of the non-volatile compound dissolves in the solvent. After many cycles the desired compound is concentrated in the distillation flask. The advantage of this system is that instead of many portions of warm solvent being passed through the sample, just one batch of solvent is recycled.
After extraction the solvent is removed, typically by means of a rotary evaporator, yielding the extracted compound. The non-soluble portion of the extracted solid remains in the thimble, and is usually discarded.
For more information:-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soxhlet_extractor
http://www.scilabware.com/Extraction-&-Fractionation/Soxhlet--Extraction/Soxhlet-complete-assemblies/p-51-52-208/
(Scilabware, Pyrex, Quickfit glassware available from P&R Labpak)
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