The Vespiary
The Hive => Chemicals & Equipment => Topic started by: wolfx on June 29, 2002, 03:16:00 AM
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A friend of mine recently bought 6.8 oz of sassafras oil from a foreign ( I mean non american, large country kind of north of the USA ) and it looks different than the usual stuff.
It is stated as 100 % sassafras albidum, manchurian origin, color is a dark, transparent olive green. It makes a drop of H2SO4 dark red ( I would say not so dark like the yellow oil I am used to ), the smell is correct. Now, what I don't like, a small ammount of the oil mostly FLOATS in water, a few droplets in the bottom, less if agitated.
Is it low safrole content ? Does someone has any data on manchurian sassafras oil ? Worth distilling it, can be done with simple distillation ?
I plan to try to distill it later on, I will post, but I probably won't be doing it so soon.
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The color seems off. Every type of sassy oil swim has seen has been a dark reddish brown color to a clear with a hint of yellow color and everything in between. If it does have safrole in there, the safrole will sink to the bottom. That's one of my first tests when getting some oil from a new place. It might just have a low safrole content. But I would distill it anyway and see whats what. Never heard of Manchurian sassy. Though they were chinese, american and brazilian.
We'll soon find out if I'm a chemist or not!
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that I don't like to hear but I guess I have to hear it...
I was trying to make a decision and I get this helped me make up my mind...
Green doesn't seem like a good color at all!!!
"If they make me dig up roots, I'm going postal.."
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Except if we're talking about ketone, that's a different story.
We'll soon find out if I'm a chemist or not!
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The smell is OK, color is different ( olive green vs. usual clear yellow-brown ) , density seems lower ( I guess about 0.97 or so ) and I think there is safrole. Question is, what percent ? I plan to distill this and to double check the density after distilling, also to look carefully at the BP of the main fraction.
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To pickler :
You are right, it is chinese, I went back to the WWW site to confirm, it says :
Origin : Chinese
Plant : root
Extraction : steam
One idea that occured to me ( I might be wrong though ) could this have been distilled from leaves and not the root bark ? I guess this might make it to look greener and also to have a lower safrole content.
If this is bull* , I suggest someone post it, I know several people also got from this source.
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This was brought up in another thread. Swim really thinks that it would bee good to get a list going of (proven/verified) bad sources (that could bee passed around and added to via pm)
Makes sense- green color = chlorophyll. ~possibly.
when someone asks what the sound of one hand clapping sounds like, you should smack them in the ear.
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The oil dealer could have pulled most of the safrole out and mixed a few other essential oils to obtain the smell. Let us know how it goes.
We'll soon find out if I'm a chemist or not!
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To GOD :
The idea of posting bad ( or negative ) sources has been proposed more than once, I think the desision was no source posting of any kind.
I think I remember another post on the oil not sinking in the water, THX, I will look for it.
To pickler :
I don't remember the exact words, but I think the dealer says pure oil, nothing added or changed.
I repeated the H2SO4 test, one drop of the oil over another drop of H2SO4 makes it very dark red. Since the smell is OK also, I think this deserves one try. I plan to distill this maybe next week. I will post.
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Do a freeze test.Below -10C safrole crystals should begin to form.
A friend with speed is a friend indeed
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I believe there is either a sodium bisulfate/ite test to determine what you have in prior posts
Infinite Radiant Light - THKRA
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I don't think any more testing is necesary, please excuse me for saying that. I am sure there is safrole. Now, to have such a low density that it floats, we will need :
1) A small ammount of something very light, I guess d = 0.7 or less. What could it be ? If ( 1 ) is the correct one things are allright, maybe.
2) A large ammount of something light, eg, phellandrene, d = 0.843.
If ( 2 ) is indeed correct, that means trouble, because it would be difficult to separate the phellandrene from the safrole with normal ( non-fractional ) vacuum distillation.
If one calculates the density as 1.1*0.5 + 0.843*0.5 = 0.97,
that means 50 % each, kind of rough estimate.
This stuff is probably from the leaves, and this is not OK, because they are saying this is root.
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A more careful density measurement yielded d = 1.01. I calibrated my volume flask by weighting the ammount of water that would weight 99.5 g. The density of water at 30 C ( actual temp ) is close to 0.995. Assuming this is 100 ml, then I measured same ammount of oil, weight = 101 g.
Sassafras oil density is usually close to 1.07, safrole close to 1.1. I think the best thing to do now is to stop guessing, to distill it and then see what.
I think I will stop posting on this till I have a chance to distill it and try to see more exactly what it is.
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A friend just received 300 ml of this greenish sassy oil.
The oil was put into a 0C refrigerator and after it chilled a small crystal of pure safrole was put into the oil. Immediately the safrole crystals started growing. 3 days later the sassy oil container was filled with safrole crystals and as they grew they pushed some green liquid to the top. Once the liquid was drained off over a period of 12 hours the crystals were pure crystal white with the typical crystal shape of safrole.
Now it would be hard to explain how a pure safrole seed crystal would precipitate anything other than more pure safrole. If this could happen then it is feasible that a NaCl crystal would be able to start the safrole crystal formation. I believe that the safrole seed crystal would not produce anything other than more safrole.
So---at this point the greenish oil looks good with lots of safrole.
If Something can go wrong----it will!!
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ClearLight,
Sodium Bisulphite adduct only forms with ketones, safrol is not a ketone, so that is out of the question. If that's what you meant . :)
Bubba Fatt - LA's Biggest Bounty Hunter. His subjects are at large and so is HE!
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Just distil it, see what you get.. be sure to record the temps and pull that it comes over with..
"The gods are too fond of a joke." (Aristotle)
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but If you still have edit writes...change the name of this post to something like...Mac Sass...or something...
Feels like source killing.
I am glad stuff worked out for you...
But at this stage of the Game...
"Know yea not that the" DEA romes around seeking for sources to devour...
Most places north of the border wont ship with out LOTS of ID...
ManCurlyTop brings up a specific web site...
Civilization really is enlightened self interest isn't it.
Diversion? What diversion? To who? To where? What were we talking about again?