khourygeo77
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Separating volatile oil in water emulsion to 2 separate layers
Any idea how this can be done?
During distillation, I get a white water as distillate, which is composed of water and oils. However, I cant separate the oil from the water, except
if i expose the distillate to the sun for like a month or 2.
I tried on several herbs, like orange blossom flower, anise seed and thyme
I am looking for an easy homemade way without using chemicals like hexane, dcm ether etc... or even the expensive centrifuge process
Thanks
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DJF90
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You could try salting it out by saturating the aqueous phase with NaCl...
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Chlorine
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Change the density of water so it seperates, use a salt like NaCl or magnesium sulfate.
Then decant off the oil layer.
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Amos
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Usually increasing the amount of material you distill from helps this in my experience. Are you distilling these oils on a very small scale?
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khourygeo77
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Nacl doesnt do anything shortly, maybe it will speed up the process of separation from a month to 2 weeks though.
I'm not sure from where to get magnesium sulfate, as chemicals here are rare and sold at very high prices.
I'm saturating the water with material and distilling, but plants are low in essential oils...
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DJF90
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NaCl should work fine; 25 %w/w is about saturated at RT, so make sure you're using enough in order to maximise the difference in density between the
aqueous and oil phases. The presence of ionic solute in the aqueous phase also reduces any aqueous solubility of the oil.
[Edited on 30-1-2017 by DJF90]
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violet sin
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Magnesium sulfate = epsom salt for baths and soaking sore feet. Usually available all over the place, but to be honest I don't travel much or far.
The milky water is called hydrosol no? Usually used as is from my understanding. While the material may not have much oil in it, what I believe Amos
correctly points out is, a lot of such material used overall or at once or both, will still provide actual self separating oil. Can you attempt cold
temperature for some time to effect separation perhaps?
What kind of oil are you after that is in that low of proportions, and how exactly are you distilling it? Like submerged bath or steamed through the
plant material? My brother has been getting very little cedar oil while he said the lavender kicked out a big load by comparison. So just curious
what you have going.
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khourygeo77
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Quote: Originally posted by DJF90  | NaCl should work fine; 25 %w/w is about saturated at RT, so make sure you're using enough in order to maximise the difference in density between the
aqueous and oil phases. The presence of ionic solute in the aqueous phase also reduces any aqueous solubility of the oil.
[Edited on 30-1-2017 by DJF90] |
Iirc I tried it before, it sounded it would work theoretically but it didnt work. I will try it again maybe. I think the separation doesnt happen
because the oils were in small quantities.
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khourygeo77
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| Quote: Originally posted by violet sin | Magnesium sulfate = epsom salt for baths and soaking sore feet. Usually available all over the place, but to be honest I don't travel much or far.
The milky water is called hydrosol no? Usually used as is from my understanding. While the material may not have much oil in it, what I believe Amos
correctly points out is, a lot of such material used overall or at once or both, will still provide actual self separating oil. Can you attempt cold
temperature for some time to effect separation perhaps?
What kind of oil are you after that is in that low of proportions, and how exactly are you distilling it? Like submerged bath or steamed through the
plant material? My brother has been getting very little cedar oil while he said the lavender kicked out a big load by comparison. So just curious
what you have going. |
I did a small search and it seems epsom salt = english salt in my country
the milky water is called hydrosol, yes. I even tried freezing the water before. Nothing. I think I should make more experiments. I should try
saturating water with salt , or even epsom salt which is better, then get the temperature to around 4 deg C, in which water is densest and try again.
I remember I could get many oils to separate once out of the distillate after freezing it for 2 or 3hours. However, I repeated the same experiment
again, nothing happened.
I tried with thyme and orange flower for example. I covered them with water and distilled (hydrodistillation). I didnt steam distill. The distillate
would have a particular taste, which means much of the plant's volatility is present.
I think the reason oils dont separate well, is because of plant volatile salts that distill with the oils and act as surfactants. They are bitter and
dont seem to be alkaline. I tried to react the with vinegar, but both didnt react which means salt wasnt basic. The salt can be spotted by rectifying
(distilling the distillate again), as it would stay at the bottom
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