The use of chloroform as a solvent

Chloroform is the organic compound with formula CHCl3. The colorless, sweet-smelling, dense liquid is a trihalomethane, and is considered somewhat hazardous. Chloroform is a common solvent in the laboratory because it is relatively unreactive, miscible with most organic liquids, and conveniently volatile. Chloroform is used as a solvent in the pharmaceutical industry and for producing dyes and pesticides. Chloroform is an effective solvent for alkaloids in their base form and thus plant material is commonly extracted with chloroform for pharmaceutical processing. For example, it is used in commerce to extract morphine from poppies and scopolamine from Datura plants. Chloroform containing deuterium (heavy hydrogen), CDCl3, is a common solvent used in NMR spectroscopy. It can be used to bond pieces of acrylic glass (also known under the trade names Perspex and Plexiglas). A solvent of phenol:chloroform:isoamyl alcohol 25:24:1 is used to dissolve non-nucleic acid biomolecules in DNA and RNA extractions.