CO2 vs Solvent Extracted Concrete

[Guest guest]

Hey Cheryl/Kathleen,

 

> Quick answer as I'm on the run away from my children! LOLOL!

 

Quick it was .. but right it was too.

 

> CO2 is the use of extracting essential oils with Carbon Dioxide. No

> whereNEAR the same as solvent extraction.

 

Right .. CO2 is a Supercritical Extraction (SCE) - low temperatures and

relatively inert chemicals are involved ; which is very efficient and

virtually all extracted material can be isolated. CO2 and similar

extraction methods like Phytols and extraction with Tetrafluroethane,

etc., involves no heat .. its a room temperature, elevated pressure

extraction - no high temperatures. The temperature drops when you

evaporate the solvent (which is a gas at room temp) from the oil.

 

Its this " no heat " point that those who praise it hang their hat on.

 

You can use this procedure to extract oil from almost anything with an

aroma component with a chemical structure consisting of carbon chains

from C1 - C8, .. that's not too important to remember - and from plants

and flowers from which distilling with steam/hydrosteam/hydrodiffusion

gets you nothing .. that's important to remember.

 

> The CO2 controversy is that some don't think it should be called a

> essential oil when extracted that way and others think its better than

> with steam distillation. No comment from me because I've never tried a

> CO2 oil because.

 

Correct .. in my book, it is NOT an essential oil, but then, neither is

an Absolute (made from Concrete) .. or a Cold or Expeller Pressed Oil.

 

Does CO2 oil have therapeutic value? Nobody knows! We can guess that

it has emotional and psychological value, as does the smell of a cup of

coffee, but as for physiological value, we just don't know. So what's

the AT advantage? Not much I think. What's the perfumery advantage?

Gaining olfactory pleasure from plants that can't be steam/hydrosteam

distilled in perfumes, cosmetics or soaps. CO2s do smell very nice.

 

> It's much more expensive than SD oils or Solvent extracted.

 

Yea .. and I've yet to figger out the economics of this .. probably

cause they aren't there. Its cheaper to produce than operating a steam

distillation facility but you can make some things that you can't get

with steam. Still, those oils that CAN be distilled are also sold as

CO2s, etc., and still cost a heckuva lot more. I don't sell them.

 

> Solvent extracted oils etc are used for the more expensive type

> plants, such as rose.

 

Right .. but the procedure is primarily used to get oils from plants

that CANNOT be distilled because the plant can't handle the temperature.

Rose Otto is steam-distilled and made as a Concrete extracted Absolute.

But Jasmine can't be efficiently distilled .. so you have only Absolute.

 

> There is ALWAYS some chemical left behind which is why it's less

> desirable than SD. But it IS cheaper than SD or CO2.

 

Normally, Concrete is obtained via use of Hexane .. but Hexane is the

one of the most .. if not THE most volatile chemical known to man .. it

evaporates FAST .. and the Hexane you find in a quality Absolute is in

the small parts per million. Believe me .. this is LESS than you find

in some cooking oils .. oh yea, sorry to burst balloons but many of the

cooking oils found on grocery shelves are made with Hexane.

 

Lemme tell y'all the Concrete process. I'll use Rosa damascena as I

have seen it many times. They dump the Rose Blossoms in a vat and hot

wash them with the solvent .. normally Hexane. Then they run it through

a process that is like distillation but it draws off the Hexane. They

wind up with a thick substance called Concrete .. its pure Rose Oil and

Rose Wax and a few other substances yielded from the Rose. Smells great

but mighty strong it does.

 

They put this in 2 kilo cans with a hole in the top .. hole's around the

size of a golf ball. The Hexane will continue to evaporate through the

hole. When desired, this Concrete is treated further to extract what is

called the Absolute and the remaining material is what everybody is now

jumping through hoops for .. the Floral Wax. We threw that away for

years cause there was no market for it .. its just since the last

distillation in May/June 2002 that folks have started asking me for it.

 

You get around a kilo of Concrete from 600 kilos of Rose Blossoms. But

it takes like 4,000 kilos of Rose Blossoms to make a kilo of Rose Otto.

Of course, they are not going to get a kilo of Absolute from a kilo of

the Concrete .. but still, it produces a less costly oil.

 

Now .. don't get the above procedure confused with Rose Otto .. the

above is Rose Absolute .. Rose Otto is produced by hydrodistillation -

there is no solvent used in production of Rose Otto.

 

> Hope that helps some. No doubt someone will come and say that my

> answer is too simplistic and give you a better understanding, but this

> is something to get you going on with! ;-)

 

You hit the nail on the head .. and its not simplistic at all .. I'm

just more verbose than the average folk. ;-p

 

> Cheers! Kathleen Petrides The Woobey Queen Allergy and Asthma friendly

> Critters and Woobeys! http://www.woobeyworld.com

 

Y'all keep smiling, Butch http://www.AV-AT.com

 

PS: Don't get feared up by terms like solvent and chemicals .. cause

water is both a solvent and chemicals. ;-p

 

> > Hi Everyone,

> > Is this the same as a CO2?

> > How would one use this?

> > TIA,

> >

> > =====

> > Cheryl Smith

> > A Heavenly Body

> > 204 Muldoon Road

> > Anchorage AK 99504

[Guest guest]

Hey Butch,

 

Thanks a lot. I like Kathleen's answer and but

yours explained hers much better. <grins>

 

I think I will try both to just check them out.

I saw a concrete for Mimosa (I think I have the

spelling correct) that I am curious about.

 

CO2's - there are a few to choose from and I

haven't decided yet which one I want to try. I

plan on checking them out for my experimentations

with perfume blends.

 

Keep up the stories and jokes Butch, they quite

often make my day much better. Paul's too when I

read them to him.

 

Always smiling,

 

 

 

=====

Cheryl Smith

A Heavenly Body

204 Muldoon Road

Anchorage AK 99504

 

 

 

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