Oils from Plants, Nuts etc

[Lithril]

Does anyone know any techniques for extracting oils from plants and nuts. It is actually for some practicals I want to do at school with 14 year olds, all the recommended procedures are quite honestly quite dire. Any ideas much appreciated.

Matt

 

[Jodie]

I don't know any interesting ways, just the semi-industrial 'crush it in
solvents of various polarity and hope for the best'. I'm off for a bit of
a Google to see what I can find

Out of interest, what are the recommended methods? It's a while
since I chemistried.

EDITS
1. Aromatherapy website which offers alternatives to solvent extraction
but does also mention how to do that as well:
http://www.aworldofaromatherapy.com/aromatherapy-extraction.htm

2. Wikipedia list of macerated oils
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macerated_oils - using oil to extract oil.

3. Wikipedia on essential oil
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essential_oil - info on distillation, cold-pressing
and solvent extractions.

4. Rich59 put up a post about this sort of thing:
http://www.bushcraftuk.com/community/showthread.php?t=14913&highlight=oils

5. If you've got all the chemicals you could shake a stick at, this is nice
description of art and science - see the bit on alizarin extraction, from
the madder plant: http://www.scienceinschool.org/2006/issue1/francesca/

 

[rich59]

You might find this thread has some useful insights:-

http://www.bushcraftuk.com/communit...ead.php?t=14913

You will see I had a successful go at getting wax from leaves by a crude distillation. You could probably get much better results than I got with my barbeque method of heating by applying a much more controlled flame (bunsen burner) but still trapping anything that evaporates off under water. Your oil should come off soon after water I should think and be visible as a layer on the top of your cooling water.

 

[Mikey P]

Beech oil is generally made by crushing beech nuts. I suspect that this is pretty easy if:

a. You have the press

b. You collect enough beech nuts. Plenty in the Autumn - I see a field trip coming on!

But it's not really chemistry - more physics. So I'll shut up.

 

[Lithril]

Cheers guys, I should have known that there would already be a thread on here about this.

The method we were using was distillation either by direct heat or by steam, it was just the yields that were quite poor.

Matt