extrator

Extrator is a term used in several technical domains to describe a device or process that removes a substance from a mixture or matrix. In English, the common term is extractor; extrator is the spelling found in languages such as Portuguese and Spanish and is sometimes used in technical documentation to refer to equivalent devices.

In everyday use, juice extractors, fruit extractors, and oil extractors are devices designed to separate a desired component from a primary material, often by pressing, grinding, maceration, or centrifugal force. Industrial and laboratory contexts also employ solvent extractors to obtain oils, flavors, or active compounds from solid materials.

In chemistry and process engineering, an extractor refers to apparatus designed to facilitate extraction. A Soxhlet extractor, for example, is a glassware component that enables continuous solid-liquid extraction by cycling solvent from a boiling flask through a thimble containing the solid sample. Other extractors include separatory funnels and specialized columns used for liquid-liquid extractions, where a solvent draws target compounds from one liquid phase into another.

In computing and information technology, an extractor can denote software components that derive structured data from unstructured sources, such as text or web content. Information extraction, data extraction, and related processes aim to identify entities, relationships, or events for downstream analysis.

Etymology and usage notes: extrator derives from Latin extrahere meaning to pull out; the agent noun form in English is extractor, while extrator appears primarily in non-English texts or as a localized spelling.