The Vespiary
The Hive => Chemicals & Equipment => Topic started by: claude on July 16, 2004, 04:32:00 AM
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Hi, I'm new here, but I would like to have your opinion concerning the following procedure of safrole extraction :
In sassafras oil, we find in various proportions, depending on the oil's origin :
- Safrole
- Pinene
- Phellandrene
- Camphor
- Eugenol
According to the CRC Handbook of Chemistry :
Water Ethanol
Safrole insoluble very soluble
Pinene insoluble soluble
Phellandrene insoluble insoluble
Camphor slightly soluble very soluble
Eugenol slightly soluble ?
So, if the oil is first repeatedly washed with water, eugenol and camphor will be extracted from the oil. Then, if the oil if treated with ethanol, nearly all safrole and some pinene can be extracted, leaving the phellandrene.
Yes, the purity of safrole isn't perfect, there is residual pinene, but can this procedure be an alternative to freezing or distilling sassatras oil ? For those like me
:( who doesn't have low pressure distillation material, and aren't lucky in fractionally freezing the oil.
And maybe a further crystallisation will work now, and achieve the purification of safrole ?
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…and its value is not in favor of your proposal.
You should first ask yourself what "slightly soluble" means. You can't efficiently extract something that is much, much more soluble in non-polar solvents with water. Utmost you could extract eugenol with aqueous NaOH, but not camphor or anything else from your list.
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Dont know how much purer it seems to get it but for piece of mind swim does this....
Freeze and extract safrole+whatever crystals (this is done 4 times) then distill and collect the safrole fraction bp, freeze again and then distilled again to collect the safrole fraction bp again.
For isomerisation in the high end conversion yields the safrole needs to be super pure, doing the above method gets iso conversion of 95-97% with no probs.
-AC
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Today I went to a store and asked if they could order sassafras oil from china(I've heard that's 96% safrole)
Anyway they came up saying they did however could order brazillian sassafras oil.
It might be helpfull for others. I'm 99% sure this can be used since it contains that much safrole:
Botanic: ocotea pretiosa Nees
Family: lauraceae
Used part: Wood
Ingredients:
0,7% alpha-pineen
phellandreen
5% cadineen
0,6% eugenol
75-95% safrol
0,2% 1,8-cineol
1-4% kamfer
*source Franchomme et al., o.c
Sjankara
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emm... simple distillation does not mess up the whole thing, just about 1 to 2 percent of polymerized crap that could be cleaned easily with acetone. just try it with simple distillation.:)