# Essential Oils + Stainless Steel



## rusty (Feb 22, 2013)

I'm considering to build some distilling equipment to recover essential oils, most of the commercially manufactured stills for the Artisan level are made from stainless steel which in my opinion is vastly overrated. Borosilicate glassware is also used but very expensive and it requires special care to avoid breakage.

My concern with stainless is that there could possibly be some chromium and nickel leaching into my oil, the later metal of which some people are allergic to. This situation would never do for oils used in aromatherapy.

What are your opinions of using an iron vessel to steam the oils from the solids.


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## Woodworker1997 (Feb 22, 2013)

Iron vessel good.... porcelin coated iron is even better.


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## rusty (Feb 22, 2013)

Woodworker1997 said:


> Iron vessel good.... porcelin coated iron is even better.



Thank you Woodworker1997, as the ancients did I shall follow in their footsteps proceeding the iron age.

Porcelain coated iron would be nice, but since I'm fabricating my own still this would be an impossible task, however there are companies that will coat a vessel with Teflon which I do not believe would stand up to the rigors of constantly removing the waste material then replacing with fresh.

Do any of our members produce essential oils.


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## qst42know (Feb 23, 2013)

Many food products are processed or stored in stainless, some are quite corrosive, carbonated soft drinks such as cola and wine come to mind. Restaurant equipment is all stainless. I wonder if your concerns of leaching metals might be over rated?

Perhaps a hybrid still would ease your concerns, a stainless boiler passivated for maximum corrosion resistance, Teflon coupling and glass condenser? 

Are you expecting a big bloom this spring?


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## rusty (Feb 23, 2013)

qst42know said:


> Are you expecting a big bloom this spring?



There's a local mill that cuts and logs their own timber from spruce, the branches are left in the woods as waste. Thought recovering the essential oils from this waste would make a good secondary income, what would be sweeter is if one could reclaim a marketable oil from the mill waste - sawdust.

I don't have a clue as to how many tons of needles and twigs it would take to get a liter of oil or the best time of year to harvest, one would have to run a few test batches to find these answers.


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## Auful (Feb 23, 2013)

rusty said:


> qst42know said:
> 
> 
> > Are you expecting a big bloom this spring?
> ...



I have been interested in doing this as well. Because I make soap from all left-over fats after cooking, I would like to scent the soap so my wife and daughters are more likely to use it. I have thought that essential oils would be a way to do this. There is also a copper and a glass distillation apparatus available online. I can't comment on efficiency of these, but I have been considering them for a while. Please share your results. I would like to learn how you fare so maybe I am a bit more informed once I begin this project.

Thanks,

Matt


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## qst42know (Feb 23, 2013)

An interesting idea but the scale of extracting oils from wood products may be a bit of a barrier. Steam, pressure, and perhaps solvent extraction may make this very difficult to do efficiently enough to make money at it even with free raw materials. be careful fabricating a pressure cooker would be dangerous project.

http://www.fao.org/docrep/X0453E/X0453e11.htm


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## rusty (Feb 23, 2013)

Auful said:


> rusty said:
> 
> 
> > qst42know said:
> ...


Next time your neighbor trims his cedar hedge ask for the waste, I met a fellow who ran a small scale nursery, whenever he saw someone trimming he would ask for the waste taking it home to dip into a root stimulant, potting the twigs then after a few years sell them. The size of the pot, 1,2 or 3 gallon would determine price.

My first thought was to use a reflux column but having hot solvent falling back onto the material being distilled would only degrade to final produce the preferred method is to have the material raised from the bottom of the pot so that only steam is making its way through taking the oil with it to the condenser. From the condensate the oil is skimmed off the top, stored out of the light in an air tight amber or blue bottle, shelf life around two years.

Oil concentrates must be used with diligence, very much diluted otherwise folks will experience skin irritations.

I suspect commercial refiners use injected steam from an external source, for economics the large stills are all made from iron.

Here is some pricing I obtained for essential oil concentrates per liter.

Spruce $416.00
Juniper $383.00
Pine $131.00
Cedar $131.30

Absolutes extracted from flowers used in the perfume industry are worth a fortune.


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## butcher (Feb 23, 2013)

I have heard of mint farms that cook the mint leaves in industrial iron (steam) boilers to get the mint oils, I am not sure how they done water treatment to prevent corrosion of their boilers.


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