Franz von Soxhlet (1848–1926)

German agricultural chemist Franz Ritter von Soxhlet was born in Brno on January 12, 1848 of Belgian parents. Obtaining hi PhD from University of Leipzig in 1872 later he was appointed assistant at the agricultural research station in Vienna in 1873. In 1979 he became a professor of animal physiology in Technical University of Munich.

In 1894 he earned a medical degree from the University of Halle. His life’s work was devoted to improvement of the health of infants via studies of the chemistry and biochemistry of milk and in 1879 he introduced its Soxhlet laboratory extractor which deals in the determination of milk fat.

His work on the sterilization of milk for infants led him in 1886 to propose pasteurization to be applied to milk and other beverages.

Soxhlet extractor was originally designed for the extraction of a lipid from a solid material. However, a Soxhlet extractor is not limited to the extraction of lipids. The Soxhlet extraction has widely been used for extracting valuable bioactive compounds from various natural sources. It is used as a model for the comparison of new extraction alternatives.
Franz von Soxhlet (1848–1926)