Both Humid and Roundbottom indicate already also that the impurities in different "species" of sassafras don't make a flying fart difference, as I expected.
Especially Humids method of re-introducing a big amount of Eugenol + other impurities, into his original sassafras oil, to check if that would interfere with the freezing, proofs it right, it doesn't! I like prompt returns on insecurities that way. Thanks, Humid.
And Roundbottoms observations indicate the same as we already heard, the impurities form in in hole on TOP of the freezing crystal mass. Just like you could see in MadMax pics, as I did also already.
Any water can be removed in a preliminary step first, however as you can see in the water solubility data I handed over on a silver platter, these eventual water contents are neglectible for all compounds of sassafras oil, and btw, if you unfreeze purified safrole, the next isomerization step asks FIRST for a water removal, to not interfere with the KOH complex while isomerizing.
If unsure what to do, throw in your new sassafras oil, a buttload of dried silicagel first, and decant after a night standing.
That thought of many different percentages in sassafras oil ofcourse came directly to my mind also, that's why I searched 6 hours on the Net to dig up those data from the main constituents of Sassafras oil. And that's why I gave the Guenther list of those VARIABLE percentages.
And gave you all the MAIN constituents data for sassafras oil, from the bible of Essential oils, Guenther again. And I am SURE the ranges he found in percentages for every constituent found, reflected the bulk of available sassafras species and suppliers.
He's a German scientist, FAMOUS for their precise and reliable data mining. (Proof: PolytheneSam, only partly German, but mainly PRECISE
, you Foxy, however, have never indicated your roots, so I can't give you credit on that, but there must have been some german precursor in your family too
)
And again, review those main data, there's not one except Eugenol, which could propose a threat while freezing.
The intention of posting that list, was mainly to make clear to the investigative mind, that Eugenol has a Mp of -7.5C, and Safrole a Mp of + 11.2 which means there is such an immens difference in melting points, that you can forget the possibility of Eugenol interfering with the freezing process.
Btw, I indicated in red already that the data from the Chemfinder website is UNRELIABLE, at least for this compound. But there are many more flaws in other compound data from them also. They should get a burning message to review their whole online data asap.
Eugenol is the only impurity I would even worry about, caused by its close relation chemically spoken, to Safrole, and we know that it, if carried along into the next isomerization annex next steps, will respond to these treatments in the same manner as Safrole, thus severely wrecking the posted YIELD results of far too many members.
All the other impurities form no serious threat to interfere in the freezing technique, they all stay liquid within the set freezing range of your deep freezer (-5).
Why a deep freezer? Because those work much faster, and fast freezing is a wellknown technique in many procedures.
Now, to conclude, may I say that your (reasonable, but not deeply thought over) reply:
""If you have 70% oil it sure in the hell is going to behave much differently than 95% oil. So all this talk of foolproof one and only methods is a bit arrogant IMHO. We are dealing with natural products from many different sources and even different plants. I'm sure that 10-20% eugenol would have a huge affect on any crystallization, what about water content, ect ect ect.
Don't say somethings foolproof until you do GC analysis of your oil so everyone knows exactly what is in the oil your using."",
is reasonably profen to be not appliable for as good as all cases of members, buying industrial sassafras oils.
Do not feel offended, this is an ongoing discussion and in the process everybody introduces new bits of theory and/or knowledge, and so it should be, always. LT/
PS: Foxy, let's not call it arrogant, but Wonder, wonder why such a simple method was overshadowed for so long by much too complicated theory and practice, while a simple check of the densities after a fractional distillation could have indicated that there was something terribly wrong with all those posters who believed truely they had pure safrole in hand, but in fact had their sassafras nearly unchanged back. Just lately freezing came back to this board again, before it was just shortly mentioned now and then, but never really propogated as the one and only reliable fast and clean method.
And THAT's why I get so upset, not having access to a lab for so long already, and having to rely on postings from amateurs,
who don't CHECK their products data after each conversion step. You will understand that too, being in the same situation.
Non lab owners should be very carefull with what they post, leave always room for cooks to proof you wrong. See myself, I really never expected such a bad result from sassafras fractional distillation, a technique what comes to mind as the first option in most purifying procedures.
WISDOMwillWIN