Extraction of essential oils - Mint Oil

The Spinning Cone Column was used to extract mint oil form a batch of fresh mint leaves. The leaf material was milled and and mixed with cold water to form a slurry. This slurry was fed into the SCC and the oil extracted. A GC analysis of the resulting oil was conducted and compared with an analysis from a commercially available sample. Two notable differences resulted from this comparison:

Greater yield of compounds
Higher concentrations of most compounds were recorded in the samples produced by the SCC. This is particularly true of important compounds such as menthol and limonene.

No menthofuran present in the SCC sample

Menthofuran is a compound known to be formed via the heat-induced degradation of other compounds naturally present in mint oil. The sample produced by the SCC did not contain any menthofuran.