Distillation processes of essential oils

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Essential oils are made with material given to us by Mother Nature. Flowers, fruits, wood and roots of plants are some examples. Of course, this must be extracted in some way, and this can be done through a distillation process.

Some of the processes applied are:

Water distillation:
This is a process in which the material is brought into direct contact with boiling water. It is not used very often as the material suffers a lot due to the high temperature.

Steam distillation: In this process, the material is pressurized by steam. This releases the volatile particles and this is then cooled again. The different substances start to separate, leaving the oil layer floating on the scented water (hydrolate).

Cold expression:
This is used, for example, in distilling fruit. In short, it comes down to squeezing out the oils.

Solvent extraction:
In this process, ethanol or hexane is used to extract oils from plant material. This is used with plants that are too delicate for steam distillation. This produces finer fragrance oils.

Enfleurage:
This is an old-fashioned way of extracting odor. Glass or cloth windows are smeared with grease. The flowers are “stuck” to this grease so that the fragrance can soak into the grease. Those flowers are regularly replaced until the fat is saturated.

Essential oils are often expensive and that’s because the yield of a distillation is often low compared to the high amount of material you put in. For example, it takes about a thousand pounds of jasmine to make one liter of essential jasmine oil! Although a lot of work goes into these processes, it is still wonderful to smell the real scents of nature![/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]