Sassafras Oil going bad?

iodide · Sat Jun 18, 2005 11:32 am

SWIM has a decent amount of good-quality sassafras oil that she bought about 4 years ago.

When it was purchased it was almost water-white, but slightly gold colored and had the beautiful licorice/root beer smell.

It has been kept in a dark closet in HDPE plastic bottles ever since.

Upon examining it now, it has the exact same smell, but is darker gold though still clear (no clouding at all). As if someone put more of the "coloring" into it.

Why is this the case? Has the sassafras oil decomposed? or more importantly, has the safrole in the oil decomposed? Did it react with the HDPE bottle somehow, ruining it?

2spun · The Resistor

iodide,

swiy really can't say with any real x-per-tice.
but swiy would think your oil is fine, swiy stores his sass like it was wine and in the same type bottle(shade'd w/ good cork,plastic type he uses).try a distill and then freaze to find out your safrole content is.(if your oil is high in safrole it should freaze).
review some of the info the the hive files as well there is good info in rhodiums arkhives.
hope this helps

bio · Working Bee

................Upon examining it now, it has the exact same smell, but is darker gold though still clear (no clouding at all). As if someone put more of the "coloring" into it.
Why is this the case? Has the sassafras oil decomposed.............

This is common with many fine chemicals, more so with plant oils which are mixtures. It's due to auto oxidation and other reactions occuring in the mixture. Some aromatic ketones and amines for example may distill clear but will discolor quickly even if refrigerated and/or excluded from air. So, yes there is some decomposition.

To minimize this, if possible distill the chemical or oil before long term storage store in amber glass (or dark) refrigerated as low as practical without freezing. There are of course exceptions like formaldehyde and some say hydrogen peroxide etc. Read the MSDS sheet. Also an inhibitor is needed for some reagents like benzaldehyde.

I think the rule of thumb says reaction rate doubles every 10 degrees. Even alkanes have a decomposition constant, 10,000 years or something equally fantastic as half life.

Know your ingredients properties!