[johnnyjohn993123]

Hi! So we had this experiment about extracting essential oils from plants--I chose White rose for this--and the set-up for this expt is steam distillation--a steam distillation glass connector connecting the round bottom flask (with water and sliced rose petals ) to the  distiling flask with tap water and glass tubing. The problem was that 35.0g of my white rose petals seems to only distill water and I can only see very minimal trace of oil. Perhaps just a drop of it. What's seems to be the problem in the expt? Would it be wise to change our plant sample? if so what kind of leaf or flower would it be? -- you know for easy extraction process

[zarhym]

People do not grow roses for oil. 

For oil, we have soybeans, corns, sunflowers and peanuts.

[billnotgatez]

I assume you are looking to produce a product similar to what is mentioned in this WIKI.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essential_oil
The WIKI has links at the bottom that can be helpful.
You might also use
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fragrance_extraction
as part of your research.

We have several posts on the topic in this forum that you can look at using the forum search feature.
here are a few examples
http://www.chemicalforums.com/index.php?topic=77060.0
http://www.chemicalforums.com/index.php?topic=68879.0

I have also done GOOGLE

making essential oils at home

and got lots of hits.
I know that all the results from that kind of search may not be helpful, but one must be well researched to be successful.

Doing this process is on my list of things to do someday.
I was going to try orange peels due to my enjoyment of eating oranges.
Someone else may chime in with their experience.

Also I am not sure that just 1 rose is going to produce very much.

[jeffmoonchop]

You need way more petals to get a manageable amount of rose oil. Hence why its quite expensive. Its in quite a lot of expensive perfumes etc.

[Arkcon]

People have been producing rose water from the steam distillation of rose petals for centuries.  The essential oils of plant materials is made by solvent extraction, generally ethanol, and vacuum distilled away, or other esoteric processes.  For example, enfleurage.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enfleurage  You can look up all of these.

[Intanjir]

Oranges are probably the easiest source of essential oil.
You can just squish it right out of the peels.

Wikipedia suggests it takes 1,500 to 10,000 pounds of rose petals to make 1 pound of oil.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rose_oil