| Physical and Chemical Properties | Chemical properties colorless or light yellow liquid. The relative density is 0.8592, the refractive index is 1.4511-1.4681, and the specific rotation is 5-16. There is green grass fragrance like citronella oil. |
| Use | Mainly used for separation and extraction of citronellal, and further synthesis of citronellol and other spices. Can also be directly used as the essence of laundry soap, or the preparation of soap, detergent, spray, cosmetic flavor. |
essential oil
essential oil is also called essential oil, volatile oil or aromatic oil. It is an oily substance with certain aroma and volatility prepared by plant distillation or extraction. It contains essential oil, oleoresin, aromatic resin and gum, but most of it is essential oil, so this distillate is called essential oil. Most of this essential oil is insoluble in water or slightly soluble in water, but soluble in ethanol and organic solvents. It is the main variety of plant-based spices in the raw materials of natural spices. It exists in the flowers, leaves, roots, stems, fruits, seeds, bark and other parts or secretions of aromatic plants. There are about 60 families and 1500 varieties of spice plants, and about 150 species of heavier ones. The main components of essential oils are terpene hydrocarbons, especially monoterpene and sesquiterpene are the core parts of essential oils; but some essential oils contain a lot of non-terpene components, such as sweet birch oil The 98% of methyl salicylate, the 90% of anise oil is anisole, and more than 95% of clove oil is eugenol. Most essential oils are complex mixtures of terpenes and non-terpenes. The main woody essential oils in China include turpentine, camphor oil, cypress oil, eucalyptus oil, star anise oil, fennel oil, osmanthus oil, Litsea cub oil, lemon oil, sweet orange oil, calamus oil, clove oil, sandalwood oil, etc., which are the main varieties of plant-based natural spices. Natural essential oil is mainly used in essence and fragrance industry.
The traditional preparation method of essential oil is the steam distillation method of natural plants, which is extracted from the flowers, leaves, roots, stems, fruits, seeds, bark and other parts of aromatic plants. However, in recent years, some new extraction methods have emerged, such as adsorption, solvent extraction, extractive distillation, etc. Since the content of essential oils in plants is very small, a large number of plants are needed to make a small amount of essential oils, so natural essential oils are very expensive. So the artificial synthesis method came into being, and it has the potential to replace natural essential oils. However, the special fragrance of some plant essential oils cannot be replaced by humans. Therefore, extracting essential oils from natural plants is still the main source of advanced essential oils.
fragrance characteristics
Natural spices are formed by natural catalysts for decomposition, rearrangement, and transformation through natural channels. The structure of their components is quite complex, especially the trace components are numerous and countless. However, some characteristic, strong aroma trace components cannot be ignored. So far, although instrumental analysis has made great progress, the basic components have been correctly analyzed, and the components can be synthesized, but there are still many difficulties in the analysis of trace components. Some artificial essential oils (also known as recombinant essential oils) are not as harmonious, delicate, soft and comfortable as natural essential oils. Because artificial essential oils do not contain trace ingredients, they always feel stiff, uncoordinated and drier after preparation.
In short, natural spices have superior, natural, comfortable, pleasant and lasting aroma and charm, which cannot be completely created manually. It is still possible to create realistic artificial essential oils when science and technology continue to make progress in the future.
The reason why natural aromatic plants are mysterious is that they can quickly decompose and transform, synthesize many kinds of aromatic substances, and can be naturally modulated into an aroma with a certain flavor flavor in a very coordinated manner, and this characteristic aroma can basically be inherited from generation to generation under the same natural conditions.
natural essential oil ingredients
natural essential oil is an important spice resource in the spice industry. there are more than 200 kinds, each with different aroma characteristics, including floral, grass, fruit, wood and animal fragrance. Humans have used spices for thousands of years, however, the ingredients they contain are not clear. Monographs on essential oils have been published in the 1950s, but unfortunately few of them talk about essential oils. It can be seen that it is difficult to identify essential oil components by conventional chemical analysis methods.
After the 1960 s, with the development of organic chemical analysis methods, more than 600 compounds have been identified using precision testing instruments for essential oil components. In the late 2060s, column chromatography was used to separate combinations of the same boiling point, and paper-based and gas chromatography began to detect the trace components of essential oils. The reaction values in gas-liquid chromatography were used to understand the structure of sesquiterpene compounds. The X-ray diffraction spectrum of the crystalline derivatives of the essential oil components is used to understand the exact structure of the components in the essential oil. Using the preparation of gas chromatography to separate compounds, as well as gas chromatography, infrared spectroscopy, nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy technology, to achieve accurate and rapid identification of complex chemical components. By the 2090 s, more than 5000 compounds have been detected. I have seen a lot of reports in this area, most of which are the Netherlands, the United States and Japan.
In my country's individual perfume research, plant research and chemical research institutions, as well as universities with relatively complete testing facilities, can carry out the identification of essential oil components, but there are no more reports.
Some of the reported essential oil composition data only listed the essential oil composition but did not give the content; some listed the main ingredients and their content, which is the peak area ratio of the spectrogram. The content of (%) appearing in this chapter refers to this concept.
From the identification of essential oil components, an essential oil is composed of dozens to hundreds of components. The volatility of each component is different. The growth environment, maturity, extraction method of essential oil, and analysis of the same aromatic plant The source of the sample and the operating factors in the detection will make the results of the same essential oil identification different.
Identification of essential oil components
The identification of essential oil components plays an important role in promoting the development of the perfume industry.
1. breeding excellent natural flavor varieties
The cultivation of aromatic plants is an important part of the spice industry and an indispensable way to solve the supply of spices. The quality of natural spices is directly related to their ingredients. If the content of main ingredients is high and the content of minor ingredients is low, such as the high content of citronellol and geraniol in rose oil, its aroma is better. The disclosure of essential oil composition has certain reference value for selecting excellent varieties.
2. Develop new natural flavor resources
wild aromatic plants have many varieties and scattered distribution. whether they have utilization value and development prospects can be used as a reference according to the identification of essential oil components.
3. Provide clues for increasing synthetic spice varieties
Synthetic fragrances are developing rapidly, which is closely related to the identification of fragrance components and essential oil components. The rapid development of edible spices is based on the disclosure of flavor components, which improves the quality of edible flavors. Many new flavor varieties and new discoveries of essential oil components have emerged, which will provide useful targets for the selection of synthetic spices.
4. It plays an important role in imitating natural aroma
when you don't know the composition of natural essential oil, if the perfumer imitates a certain fragrance such as flower fragrance or grass fragrance, it will take a long time to choose spices to match again and again based on his personal sense of smell, and the result is difficult to reach the level of realistic natural fragrance. Even if it is impossible to express its true composition 100% of the identified essential oil components, the given components and contents are enough to point out a shortcut for perfumers to imitate the aroma of natural products.