I want to create an extract of oils that originated from herbs such as passionflower and catnip and many others. Does anybody know how?
Please Note : This site is designed for educational purposes only and is not engaged in rendering medical advice or professional services. It is not intended to be a substitute for informed medical advice or care. You should not use this information to diagnose or treat any health problems or illnesses without consulting your paediatrician or family doctor. Please consult a qualified medical doctor with any questions or concerns you might have regarding any member of your family’s condition.
There are a lot of methods, depending on available materials, needed extract components etc. The basic principle is that the oils are more soluble in oily solvents than they are in mostly water plant material. Essentially what you do is soak the herbs in solvent, filter the solvent, then boil off the solvent leaving the extracted oil. Usually when you boil off the solvent you distill it for reuse and normally extractions are done three times with minimal solvent each time. extraction solvents can be alcohols, acetone, hexane or any other organic solvent. Drug processors frequently use gasoline to extract cocaine from the leaves of the coco plant not the same as the cacao plant that produces chocolate.
Related to your examples passionflower and catnip I suppose, that you want to extract essential oils.
There are the methods of maceration, either with an organic solvent like ethanol or enfleurage with fat,
the distillation ( best steam distillation ),
solvent extraction ( most used solvent: ethanol ) and
mechanical expression.
The method goes according to the quantity of oil, the part of plant containing it and the characteristics of oil, e.g. Citrus-oil ( in skin of fruits )is produced by mechanical pressure, catnip oil ( in herb ) by steam distillation, rose oil (in flowers, very delicate and expensive ) by enfleurage.