Sciencemadness Discussion Board

Unknown substance from distillation

lordmagnus - 8-2-2006 at 20:05

I dissolved several grams of powdered NUTMEG spice in some cheap Vodka, and refluxed this for about 1 hour with an allihn condensor on top of my 1000ml boiling flask. I ran the solution through filtering to remove the ground nutmeg, and returned it to the boiling flask, and reset the rig with my 200mm vigereaux column, thermo still head, and allihn condenser. I insulated the column, and the top of the flask, and heated the water bath up. The first product that came out was Ethanol mostly (78 deg. C) with a slight noticeable nutmeg smell and a hint of taste to it, after awhile the top of the still head moved up to 80.5 and a product was produced rather quickly, and light oily substance with a strong spicey smell. This is the product I am trying to find out about, I don't see it's temp listed in any referance to various substances in nutmegs

unionised - 13-2-2006 at 02:18

I think you have "steam distilled" nutmeg oil using alcohol/water vapour to cary the oil vapour.