Essential Oil Extraction Lab Activity
Welcome to the Essential Oils MACTLAC Breakout Session
About the workshop leader, Laura Parmentier, Ph.D.
Professor Parmentier teaches courses in organic and medicinal chemistry at Beloit College. She is currently co-Chair of Beloit’s interdisciplinary Health and Society program, and she teaches health and food related courses as part of this and the First Year Initiatives program. Laura has been interested in plants since the first grade when she first grew a bean plant in a paper cup. She is an avid fruit, vegetable, and herb gardener. She became interested in medicinal plants from a professional point of view after participating in the 2016 NSF-sponsored cCWCS workshop on medicinal plants at Tuskegee University.
Laura earned her PhD in organic chemistry at the University of Wisconsin in 1990, and she conducted postdoctoral research at the UW’s Institute for Enzyme Research. She joined the faculty at Beloit College in 1991. Her current research interests are in medicinal chemistry and chemical education.
Workshop Overview
Essential oils have been used throughout human societies for as long as documentation exists. These oils were originally used for their aromatic quality as parts of ceremonial or religious events and evolved as a means of treating both physical and mental illness. Essential oils have been of interest to chemist for many years. These oils represent a diverse class of organic molecules that can be used to teach many aspects of organic chemistry, analytical methods, as well as many areas within the liberal arts. In this workshop you will be presented with the following:
1) Isolation techniques
- Steam distillation
- Clevenger distillation (file:///Users/besturgeon/Downloads/Aromatic%20plant%20extr%20methods.pdf)
- Soxhlet Extraction
- fractional distillation
- others?
2) Separation techniques
- GC
- HPLC
3) Characterization
- GC-MS
- NMR (low-field and high field)
- Spectral Search (http://sdbs.db.aist.go.jp/sdbs/cgi-bin/direct_frame_top.cgi)
4) Samples of oils and main compounds of interest. Kits?
5) "Smell" activity
Tentative Workshop Activities
Samples that can be steam distilled:
Citrus
Orange Oil
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orange_oil
Lemon Oil
Lime Oil
Grapefruit Oil
Mint
Basil
http://www.tradewindsfruit.com/herbs/?sort=featured&page=3
Spicy Basil(Ocimun americanum or basilicum ???)
Sweet Basil (Ocimun basilicum)
Holy Basil (Ocimum_tenuiflorum)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocimum_tenuiflorum
- http://www.johnnyseeds.com/herbs/basil/kapoor-tulsi-holy-basil-organic-basil-seed-6021G.html?cgid=basil#start=1
Tree Basil (Ocimun gratissimum)
http://www.tradewindsfruit.com/herbs/?sort=featured&page=3
Lemon Basil (Ocimum basilicum var. citriodora 'Mrs. Burns')
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mrs._Burns_lemon_basil
- http://www.johnnyseeds.com/herbs/basil/mrs.-burns-lemon-basil-seed-774.html?cgid=basil#start=1
Lime Basil
Cinnamon Basil ()