Hey guys,
I bought 800ml of brown camphor oil that I was told was at least 90% safrole. It has an overpowering camphor smell and a teak brown hue. I tried freezing it by leaving a small amount in the freezer for a few days in a small bottle. Nothing resulted, I tried this several times and no oils solidified out. I weighed it and found that it had a density of 0.87g/ml.
Then I tried a vacuum distillation. I received about 400mls of a quite thin liquor that came over around 200C. It has a stronger camphor smell than the original mix and is almost completely colourless. Then a second fraction that came over around 250-260C. Light brownish colour with less camphor smell, but evidently still there.
A dark brown/red liquid is still remaining in the distillation flask. It has a faint smell of camphor to it but I cannot detect a strong presence of the typical safrole smell that it should possess.
The seller was adamant that it was over 90% safrole and told me it had been quality tested for 94% safrole on an earlier order of several thousand litres that was sent to a fragrance manufacturer. They could not provide an accurate break down of the constituents of the oil however.
According to the density of roughly 0.9g/ml (safrole being 1.1g/ml), is it possible that this oil is even over 80% safrole? No doubt it has scores of other camphor related compounds present in it, but I have no accurate way of finding out what these could be. I am thinking about demanding a replacement 800mls as it does not seem like I have been sent anything near 90% safrole.
The only thing that tells me that the oil has some kind of safrole content is that when the flasks are rinsed and the camphor smell washes away, a beautiful sweet candy smelling aroma is left behind, and it's pretty difficult to remove. It doesn't help that the camphor over powers any kind of safrole smell either. What do you guys think?
I bought 800ml of brown camphor oil that I was told was at least 90% safrole. It has an overpowering camphor smell and a teak brown hue. I tried freezing it by leaving a small amount in the freezer for a few days in a small bottle. Nothing resulted, I tried this several times and no oils solidified out. I weighed it and found that it had a density of 0.87g/ml.
Then I tried a vacuum distillation. I received about 400mls of a quite thin liquor that came over around 200C. It has a stronger camphor smell than the original mix and is almost completely colourless. Then a second fraction that came over around 250-260C. Light brownish colour with less camphor smell, but evidently still there.
A dark brown/red liquid is still remaining in the distillation flask. It has a faint smell of camphor to it but I cannot detect a strong presence of the typical safrole smell that it should possess.
The seller was adamant that it was over 90% safrole and told me it had been quality tested for 94% safrole on an earlier order of several thousand litres that was sent to a fragrance manufacturer. They could not provide an accurate break down of the constituents of the oil however.
According to the density of roughly 0.9g/ml (safrole being 1.1g/ml), is it possible that this oil is even over 80% safrole? No doubt it has scores of other camphor related compounds present in it, but I have no accurate way of finding out what these could be. I am thinking about demanding a replacement 800mls as it does not seem like I have been sent anything near 90% safrole.
The only thing that tells me that the oil has some kind of safrole content is that when the flasks are rinsed and the camphor smell washes away, a beautiful sweet candy smelling aroma is left behind, and it's pretty difficult to remove. It doesn't help that the camphor over powers any kind of safrole smell either. What do you guys think?
Don't deal with him anymore 
safrole TLC & HPTLC.zip