What Are The Methods Of Extracting Essential Oil From Plant?

2022-10-27

Natural plant essential oils are extracted as follows:

Cold press method: The simplest method is to use mechanical tools to apply pressure to make plant juice flow out. All citrus plants use this method.

Extraction method: after the essential oil is dissolved by solvent, the solvent is separated to obtain pure essential oil products.

Due to the nature of essential oil, it can be divided into three methods:

1. General solvent extraction method: This method is used for most essential oils with non-polar solvents, such as petroleum ether, toluene, etc.

2. Resin extraction method: The essential oil with high boiling point is difficult to volatilize, and the general extraction method will waste heating energy, so the resin is used as the solvent.

3. Carbon dioxide extraction method: This method must be used for essential oils sensitive to heating.

Distillation method: There are two ways to dissolve essential oil with steam, direct and indirect:

1. Direct steam distillation: the most common method for extracting essential oil, which is to blow steam directly from the bottom of the distillation tower to directly contact with the extracted plants.

2. Indirect steam distillation method: heating the extracted plant and water together to boiling.

In addition, some essential oils that need to be refined more pure after refining, or those whose color is blackened, can be refined by vacuum distillation. The steam is only used for heating and does not contact with the essential oil.