Swinfi2
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Failed steam distillation. Any ideas what went wrong?
Trying to steam distill tansy oil but nothing collects in the receiving cylinder?
I've made lavender oil using fresh picked flowers and that worked, but when I try this kind of flower (tansy) nothing collects. I see some tiny specks
of oil but they never coalesce to a layer. At first I was lazy and let the cooling loop get hot, but after that failed I tried again using a fresh
water supply that I drained and replaced before it got too warm but the result was the same.
I'm pretty new to steam distilling so I'm not too sure how it went wrong. On the second run I also covered the hot side in tinfoil. Any ideas guys?
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macckone
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Get rid of the vigreux column or do an ethanol extraction.
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Swinfi2
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Ahh I was just using that to raise the height so I can siphon the water back into the pot. I assumed it would just be overloaded when the heat is
crank up but I'll try without next time.
I'll post an update when I've got more flowers to try it on.
Thanks for the help mac
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DraconicAcid
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Agreed- get rid of the Vigreaux column, or all the oil will condense and drip back down into your flask.
I usually only get tiny, tiny amounts of oil in a steam distillation. I think the most I've ever gotten was 1% by mass from cloves.
Please remember: "Filtrate" is not a verb.
Write up your lab reports the way your instructor wants them, not the way your ex-instructor wants them.
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Ubya
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if you are not getting enough oil to even form a layer on the water layer, try maybe using more plant matter, crush it slightly to break the cells. If
you can setup an external boiling vessel you won't have issues with trapped bubbles pushing plant matter in the condenser.
[Edited on 18-8-2020 by Ubya]
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feel free to correct my grammar, or any mistakes i make
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