khourygeo78
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How hydrodistillation works
So, I tried to get essential oils by performing hydrodistillation as some here suggested before. I tried imitating other experiments done on the
internet, by drowning herb in water and distilling to get water and essential oil floating, but this didnt succeed.
What I got was a whitish water that greatly has a biting smell (I distilled thyme). I was wondering if the white water contains the essential oil
supposedly mixed with it, but I'm not sure how to separate the oil.
I remember someone who, after hydrodistillation would only obtain plain clear water, but by exposing to the sun for over a month, a layer of oil
separates at the top.
Any idea about how I could obtain the essential oil in this way ? (hydrodistillation)
Thanks
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Chemetix
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Sounds like you did get something but not a lot. Some oils separate cleanly from the water others less so and thymol and carvacrol have a hydrophilic
nature about them so I'm not surprised you found separation from water disappointing. Due to the phenol structure no doubt. A similar phenomena
happens with anise oils for making ouzo, the oils make a milky opalescence in small quantity when added to water and need quite significant amounts
before you will see oil. Steam distilling something like cloves will give a fairly clean amount of visible oils. Or just add a few drops of the pure
essential oil into a flask and distil that for practice, see how much you can retrieve as an exercise.
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khourygeo78
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Quote: Originally posted by Chemetix  | | Sounds like you did get something but not a lot. Some oils separate cleanly from the water others less so and thymol and carvacrol have a hydrophilic
nature about them so I'm not surprised you found separation from water disappointing. Due to the phenol structure no doubt. A similar phenomena
happens with anise oils for making ouzo, the oils make a milky opalescence in small quantity when added to water and need quite significant amounts
before you will see oil. Steam distilling something like cloves will give a fairly clean amount of visible oils. Or just add a few drops of the pure
essential oil into a flask and distil that for practice, see how much you can retrieve as an exercise. |
So I guess there's no way to separate the essence from the water?
And I tested on other herbs & flowers, pretty much all give white water. I even could separate a volatile oil from flax seeds once using alcohol
as solvent, but when I added water expecting to get the oil to float on top, I got a white water instead. I did this with a few other plants too.
And I guess that hydrodistillation isnt the best way. I should look for a better one using volatile solvents to retrieve the oils.
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Tsjerk
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It depends on how volatile your oil is. You could extract the white suspension with a low boiling hydrophobic solvent and evaporate the solvent. This
only doesn't work with very volatile extracts as you would lose your product with the solvent evaporation.
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