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Absolutes

Solvent Extraction method is used to extract essential oil from the plants of various types that cannot extract using the high heat used in Steam Distillation or it is hard to extract essential oils using distillation methods. Very precise and selected aromatic oils such as Jasmine, Tuberose, linden blossom, frangipani etc can never service in case of extracting using steam distillation so we use solvent extraction to achieve the special aroma of these flowers. In case of some delicate plants, intense heat damage the properties of the flower and material , only solvent extraction is the way to produce it.

Sometimes, we use hexane or alcohol, ethanol, ether or even other petroleum products to coax the oils out of the plant. In aromatherapy, this hexane or other petroleum products can never be tolerated so they always want steam distilled oils or alcohol extracted absolutes.

Process: A solvent extraction system is fully equipped with perforated trays of flower petals. The petals are further washed again and again with a solvent mentioned above. The solvent melts all extractable material from the plant such as non-aromatic waxes, pigments and highly volatile aromatic compounds or molecules. The whole blend is then containing the solvent and dissolvable plant material which is further filtered subjected to low pressure distillation to recover the solvent for further repeated use. The remaining waxy mass is what is called concrete which is having 30 to 60% of volatile oil is called “Absolute”

This concentrated and pure concrete is further processed to remove the waxy material which dilute the pure essential oil. To prepare the absolute from the concrete, the waxy concrete is warmed and stirred with alcohol (I,e. ethanol) . During the heating and stirring process the concrete breaks up into minute globules. Since the aromatic molecules are more soluble in alcohol than is the wax an efficient separation of the two takes place. But along with the aromatic molecules a certain amount of wax also becomes dissolved and this can only be removed by agitating and freezing the solution at very low temperatures (around -30 degrees F) In this way most of the wax precipates out. As a final precaution the purified solution is cold filtered leaving only the wax-free material (the absolute.)