What are potential sources of low recovery in this acid-base extraction experiment? I did an acid-base extraction experiment. First extracted a solid mixture containing benzoic acid, p-nitroaniline, and naphthalene into three separate solutions:     


NaOH extract 
HCl extract
3.organic with the neutral compound.   


Then the HCl and NaOH extracts were neutralized and underwent vacuum filtration to isolate crude p-nitroaniline and crude benzoic acid, while the organic solution underwent rotary evaporation to get crude naphthalene.  

Crude benzoic acid was purified by recrystallization using hot filtration, and then benzoic acid crystals were isolated by suction filtration. The melting range of the benzoic was relatively pure.

How can I improve this experiment? My recovery of benzoic acid was less than 40%

And as for sources of error, extraction processes always lose some compound during each step. What are other probable sources of error?
I can only assume that you we following some recipe for the purification of the benzoic acid. Frankly if I were doing this I would have done it differently. 

Wikipedia shows that the solubility of benzoic acid is 1.7 g/L (0 °C) and 56.31 g/L (100 °C) in water. So I'd added benzoic acid to a test tube and put in a boiling water bath. I'd added just enough water to get the benzoic acid to dissolve and then let the liquid cool in air. When down to room temp, I'd put it into an ice bath. After 10 minutes in ice bath I'd pour off water. I'd wash with a few drops of ice cold water. I'd test for purity and if not good enough I'd repeat. 

0.34 g of crude benzoic acid should dissolve in about 6 ml of boiling water. 

Each water cycle should have an efficiency of close to (56.31 - 1.7)/56.31 = 97%