bereal511 - 13-2-2006 at 20:52
Recently, my friend asked me to distill the essence of lemons for her as a present for Valentine's Day. The chemical responsible for the smell of
lemons is limonene, and I thought it was a simple enough extraction. So after an hour or two of cutting lemon rinds, boiling them in water, then
doing a simple distillation of the liquid, I was able to obtain a liquid (which also contained water) that smelled strongly of lemons.
But after doing a bit of research, it is said that limonene is supposed to form a seperate layer from water. The liquid that I obtained does not
exhibit any double layer. Should I have done the extraction differently? And how can I obtain limonene in a purer form?
Esplosivo - 13-2-2006 at 22:28
You could try steam distillation of the rind itself. It works, although don't expect enormous yields unless you have a lot of rind. I managed to
extract thin oily films, but nowhere close to 5mL yet, even though I have access to a lot of lemons and other fruits.
Limonene, which is an essential oil terpene, is being investigated for a use as an anti-cancer drug. Research shows that limonene, together with some
other essential oil terpenes, may induce apoptosis of certain cancer cells. Fun isn't it? 
[Edited on 14-2-2006 by Esplosivo]
unionised - 14-2-2006 at 12:58
This
http://www.oxyboost.com/products/orange100.html
would be cheating.
chochu3 - 14-2-2006 at 14:58
Lemon grass will yield a greater yeild. We tried on of these in lab in my first organic chem lab.
bereal511 - 14-2-2006 at 16:47
Well, we have a lot of citrus fruit trees around here, so I just didn't want to buy anything out of the way.