The BACIS Archives

[ BNB - 96122 ]

• Production of Essential Oils

During the last two decades a series of publications about the production of essential oils and other volatile natural isolates have appeared. The production methods for volatile natural products have improved significantly in recent years, especially since the introduction of continuous processes.

The main aspects of the production of essential oils are the preparation of the plantmaterial, the isolation methods, the yields and economics, and the quality control. The preparation of the plantmaterial may concern harvesting, threshing, drying, grinding, chipping, hydrolysis and fermentative conversion.

Volatile natural isolates, including essential oils, are manufactured by expression, by distillation or by extraction. Citrus oils, for instance, can be produced by expression, such as the Italian pellatrice and sfumatrice methods, the American Brown oil extractor, and the FMC apparatus. For the production of, for example, leaf, seed and flower oils steamdistillation, hydrodistillation and hydrodiffusion are applied. Other natural isolates are obtained by solvent extraction or by supercritical fluid carbondioxide extraction.

Some important publications are shown below. Summaries of these publications are available from BACIS.

 

Bernhard Meyer-Warnod, Natural Essential Oils. Extraction Processes and Application to Some Major Oils. Perf. Flav., Vol. 9, 93-103 (April/May 1984).

 

Jean-François Arnaudo, Le Goût du Naturel - The Taste of Nature. Private publ. BIOLANDES AROMES, 23, Villa Marie-Justine, 92100 Boulogne (France), (1992).

 

José H. Flores and Guillermo T. Segredo, Citrus Oil Recovery During Juice Extraction. Perf. Flav., Vol. 21, 13-15 (May/June 1996).

 

Mans H. Boelens et al., Ten Years of Hydrodiffusion of Oils. Perf. Flav., Vol. 15, 11-14 (September/October 1990).

 

G.R. Boucard and R.W. Serth, A Continuous Steam Stripping Process for the Distillation of Essential Oils. Perf. Flav., Vol. 16, 1-8 (March/April 1991).

 

E.F.K. Denny, The modern approach to essential oil distillation from the herb. Proceedings of the International Conference on Essential Oils, Flavours, Fragrances and Cosmetics, pp. 161-165. Beijing, China, 9-13 October 1988.

 

E.F.K. Denny, Steam Distillation of the Subcutaneous Essential Oils. In: Flavors and Fragrances: A World Perspective. Proc. of the 10th Intern. Congress of Essential Oils, Fragrances and Flavors, pp. 85-98, Washington (DC), U.S.A., 16-20 November 1986. B.M. Lawrence, B.D. Mookherjee and B.J. Willis (Editors), Elsevier Science Publishers B.V., Amsterdam, The Netherlands (1988).

 

J. Kroon, Vacuumdistillation in the Aromachemical Industry (1979). Research Centre Naarden International. Private publ. NAARDEN INTERNATIONAL. Now: QUEST INTERNATIONAL, Naarden, The Netherlands.

 

D.A. Moyler et al., Ten Years of Carbondioxide Extracted Oils. Proceedings 12th ICEOFF Vienna, Austria, October 1992.

 

B.M. Lawrence, The Isolation of Aromatic Materials from Natural Plant Products, pp. 57-154. In: A Manual on the Essential Oil Industry, Editor K. Tuley De Silva, UNIDO, Vienna, Austria (1995).

 

Mans H. Boelens, Production of Essential Oils. In: Proceedings of the 27th INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM ON ESSENTIAL OILS, September 8-11, 1996, Vienna, Austria (to be published in 1997).