Hello. I am a new user at the chemical forums. My background consists of the beginning of an undergrad chemistry degree (I switched majors). I took classes through organic chem 1.
Now for my questions. I wanted to extract some essential oils to use in soap and perfume making. Cedar was the first that I tried. Since I have no lab of my own, this experiment has improvised materials.
I added an unknown amount of cedar twigs and needles to crock pot, and added water and cooked on low for 4-5 hours. I then decanted the liquid from this and threw away the solids. I added zippo lighter fluid to this (which contains mostly naptha I believe) and collected the non polar layer (I did this 4 times with probably 20mL of the lighter fluid each time). To this I added some isopropyl alcohol (91% and unknown amount) to break the emulsion that formed. I allowed this to settle and collected the non polar layer again. To this I added some 10% ammonia solution to try and salt out impurities.
And here is my question. Since this resulted in a cloudy clear liquid that hasn't settled in approx 3 hours, did I mess this up by adding ammonia? or should I just go ahead and try to evaporate the remaining naptha? Will this product be relatively pure (I realize this is a hard question to answer)? And what are your suggestions for improving this keeping in mind that I have limited access to glassware and high purity reagents?
PS. From my research the essential oil is mostly comprised of cedrol, ∀-cedrene, and thujopsene.
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Topic: Essential oil extraction (Read 3230 times)