Chloroform is a common laboratory reagent favored for use as a solvent due to the compounds relative unreactivity and miscibility with most organic compounds.
Synonyms: 1,1,1-Trichloromethane, Trichloromethane, Methylidyne trichloride, Triclorometano, Formyl trichloride
CAS Number: 67-66-3
Molecular Formula: CHCl3
Molecular Weight: 119.4
Beilstein Registry Number: 1731042
EC Number: 200-663-8
MDL Number: MFCD00000826
Applications
Chloroform is used as a solvent for fats, oils, rubber, alkaloids, waxes, gutta-percha, resins; as cleansing agent; in fire extinguishers to lower the freezing temperature of carbon tetrachloride. Procedures have been described for the use of chloroform in lambda plaques storage, lambda cDNA storage, the removal of mineral oil from PCR reaction samples, oligonucleotide purification, a hydroxyl radical footprinting protocol, a transcriptional run-on assay protocol, and an overlay assay for beta-galactosidase activity. It has also been used with phenol in such procedures as DNA recovery from polyacrylamide gels, ethidium bromide removal from DNA preparations, lysis protocols for plasmid DNA isolation, RNase removal, and purification of yeast DNA. A protocol describes the use of chloroform in a high-performance thin-layer chromatography protocol for sphingomyelin analysis. Chloroform can also be used in chloroform/methanol mixtures for the isolation of cardiolipids from Geobacillus stearothermophilus and their subsequent MS analysis. The isolation of the bacteriocin amylovorin L471 from Lactobacillus amylovorus DCE 471 in culture broth has been reported, using chloroform/methanol extraction and precipitation in the procedure. Chloroform/2-butanol mixtures can be used for the extraction of steroid sulfates for analysis by nanoelectrospray ionization mass spectrometry.