Extracting wax and oil

[rich59]

Toddy recently mentioned getting some wax from boiling up dried Juniper berries. This caused me tho think about sources of waxes and oils from plants in the UK.

I thought that waxy leaves from my garden might have some wax so I boiled up some dry/ brown laurel leaves for 20 minutes. No sign of a result, so I then pressure cooked them for 20. No result again. Does this mean that there was no wax, or that the wax did not melt at the temperatures achieved, or that the wax was not released from the cells?

Apple skin seems waxy. Would it be worth trying with that?

[rich59]

Ah, the talking to myself syndrome again. Need to get out more!

I thought over my experiment again. Actually I might have produced some wax, but I did not perhaps recognise it. There were a few floating white flecks after the boiling. But they seemed to disappear. After the pressure cooking there were more, and a collection just above the water line - like scum. When I scraped some off on my finger it seemed to just melt away.

Later I burnt a laurel leaf. There seemed to be a coating that melted and then burnt.

So, I need to investigate more, but provisionally it may be that leaves do have a wax coating but it may have a very high melting point - above pressure cooking temperature. The little I extracted may have been flakes of unmelted wax that easily rubbed into the skin.

If that is right then it might be that other plants have waxes in their leaves that melt at lower temperatures that could be collected more easily.

I read recently that banana leaf (dried is 3% wax). I have access to one leaf, hanging over from my neighbour. Might try that one next.

[anthonyyy]

If there is wax or oil in plant matter you need to dissolve it in an organic solvent (something like petroleum) and then filter. Let the solvent evaporate and collect the residue. Bob's yer uncle and Fanny is yer aunt.

[Tadpole]

Ah, the talking to myself syndrome again. Need to get out more!

I thought over my experiment again. Actually I might have produced some wax, but I did not perhaps recognise it. There were a few floating white flecks after the boiling. But they seemed to disappear. After the pressure cooking there were more, and a collection just above the water line - like scum. When I scraped some off on my finger it seemed to just melt away.

.

To be honest, though I have read about extracting waxs and oils from plants, I have never tried it, as it involves chemicals solvents and the like.
You need to chop, crush or tear the plant (depending on the type of plant and how waxy it is) and submerge in a solvent.
The solvent frees the wax or oil from the plant, holding it in the solution. All that is left to do is boil off or let the solvent evaporate and you should be left with the oil or wax required. You might have to re-boil the solvent to make the wax/oil more concentrated, but as I have said I have never done this, and would hesitate to do this in a household situation.

Try here, it might give you some ideas.

[ilovemybed]

If there is wax or oil in plant matter you need to dissolve it in an organic solvent (something like petroleum) and then filter. Let the solvent evaporate and collect the residue. Bob's yer uncle and Fanny is yer aunt.

You can get special books and kit from some aromatherapy places for making your own essential oils, although I expect you can get similar results without buying the posh kit.
Here's a reasonably good guide I just found: http://www.essentialoils.co.za/extraction-methods.htm

In the garden shed method you can use room temperature Acetone or Isopropanol, available from fibreglass shops and cleaning supplies respectively.

Note: The colder the solvent, the less waxes will dissolve, but if you heat it you'll burn the house down. You could warm the leaf matter through before soaking I guess...
Some substances are more soluble in certain solvents so it really depends on what you want to extract and how you want to use it.

Here's a rough guide to the Garden Shed method:

When with all solvents, keep away from sparks, douse any naked flames and perform in a well ventilated area!

1) Dry and powder your chosen plant.

2) Take all of the powder and put it in a jar that can be sealed, pour in 99% Isopropanol or acetone, close and shake for a several minutes. Let the particles settle.

3) Decant the solvent into another container and save for later

4) Repeat step 2 twice more, each time decanting the liquid into your second container. Don't use too much because you eventually want this solvent to evaporate and you don't want to wait forever!

5) Wash the now extracted sediment through with solvent and again decant the liquid twice to ensure you get all the dissolved waxes and oils.

6) Pour all your decanted liquid into a shallow container. Leave for 12 hours to allow the tannins and other particles to settle out. Decant, discard the sediment, and repeat. There could be a surprising amount so be prepared to wait.

7) Decant the now clear liquid into another shallow dish and allow the isopropanol to completely evaporate. You should get a dark waxy residue which you can use as-is or you can refine further. For instance you could dissolve the lipids and waxes out from some of the other organic compounds using naptha (lighter fluid): Wash in naptha, decant and evaporate again, then re-dissolve in another suitable solvent or again, use as-is. The sediment left after the naptha wash can be useful too depending on the plant - for instance I think you might have quite a concentration of Salicin (spelling?) left if you did it with willow, but I'm no chemist so don't take my word for it.

You could then chill the solvent which might persuade some of the less soluble waxes to solidify, and they can be isolated by filtration, but it's not so efficient.

Any more accurate extraction of certain fractions of the oils would probably require distillation which is pretty dangerous - not really bushcraft either so I'll leave it out and you can look that up on t'internet.

Does any of that ring any bells from old chemistry lessons?

Good luck!
Neil

[Toddy]

Wow, you're thorough! I can't see me doing that around a campfire though
For medieval stuff I use an alembic, which is a sort of cone shaped pottery lid with a spiral runnel inside that winds down from the top to a spigot type handle that drips out over a cup or bowl. It's basically steam distillation and is surprisingly effective. If you simmer the plant material gently under a close fitting lid and then let the whole thing cool down without removing the lid, oil and wax will float to the surface. The problem is that so will the plant material, so a mesh that fits above the plant material but below the surface of the water is used. You can also just boil up the plant stuff and strain off the liquid and let that cool. Not quite as effective though, but it does work.
Cheers,
Toddy

[demographic]

Wow, you're thorough! I can't see me doing that around a campfire though
For medieval stuff I use an alembic, which is a sort of cone shaped pottery lid with a spiral runnel inside that winds down from the top to a spigot type handle that drips out over a cup or bowl. It's basically steam distillation and is surprisingly effective. If you simmer the plant material gently under a close fitting lid and then let the whole thing cool down without removing the lid, oil and wax will float to the surface. The problem is that so will the plant material, so a mesh that fits above the plant material but below the surface of the water is used. You can also just boil up the plant stuff and strain off the liquid and let that cool. Not quite as effective though, but it does work.
Cheers,
Toddy

Is it like this?
I just had to google to understand it better and this is what it turned up.
Not that I am going to bother making wax I admit but was interested all the same.

[Toddy]

That's the kind that'll get you in trouble with the Customs & Excise men if they suspect your home brew is kind of powerful

Imagine it simplified down to a cone shaped pot lid with the handle pointing downwards. There's a spiral runs from the crown to the handle, but the handle is hollow and acts as a drainage tube.

I can't find a clear illustration, there's a different bulbous based type here

http://www.tvas.co.uk/Updates/update00.html

and an explanation of distillation methods here, the bit about common distilled simple waters shows the kind of alembic I mean.

http://www.alchemywebsite.com/jfren_1.html

Cheers,
Toddy

[Toddy]

I've been thinking about this.....I can hear the worry beads coming out now

I made corn on the cob for lunch, how come I don't get an oily skin on the liquid? I know there's some dispersed in the cooking water, but not very much. Yet there are positive *lakes* of corn oil available. How is the stuff extracted?

cheers,
Toddy

[rich59]

Toddy, I loved the alchemy website. Lovely language.

New ideas all the time here!

So to extract wax from leaves we so far have 3 suggestions:-

Boil/ pressure cook the leaves in water
Use organic solvents
Distill the leaves

I was trying to think how I might do a distillation in the home environment or even better in the bushcraft environment. My thoughts went to my char cloth making tin. Suddenly I am seeing that plume of smoke/ flame out of the hole in the top in a new light. What I am actually doing is a very crude distillation!!! I am distilling off everything and leaving only a carbon residue. But the very wax or oil I might be after has just burnt away!

So, I wonder if I could connect a pipe to my charcloth tin with an outlet under water, or even a vessel cooled by water. I also may want to think about a different shape charcloth tin - that is more the shape of a "retort" used in a physics or chemistry lab.

Bushcraft alchemy???

This needs some more experimentation.

[gregorach]

I've been thinking about this.....I can hear the worry beads coming out now

I made corn on the cob for lunch, how come I don't get an oily skin on the liquid? I know there's some dispersed in the cooking water, but not very much. Yet there are positive *lakes* of corn oil available. How is the stuff extracted?

cheers,
Toddy

I'm not sure, but I suspect that it involves crushing the kernels and then sticking the resulting mush into a big press.

[ESpy]

I *think* that the extraction of corn oil requires solvent - I had wondered if it related to smoke point of the oil, but there are other oils that can be cold pressed with higher smoke points, so that idea is out the window.

As for destructive distillation of cloth - it's not that dissimilar to the process of making birch tar. There are a number of designs for charcoal retorts that duct the emissions around underneath the retort, which helps with the heat needed to create the charcoal.

You could, of course, saponify your extracted oils using wood ash...

[demographic]

That's the kind that'll get you in trouble with the Customs & Excise men if they suspect your home brew is kind of powerful

Its funny you mention that cos I heard thats what one of my grandfathers used to do, I have his Friedrich condenser now (never used it though) and its a large glass tube with another glass tube running through it in a spiral.

The large tube has an inlet and an outlet for cold water to cool the spiral tube which has the vapour/condensate in it with an outlet at the bottom.
Looks a bit like this...



Theres another bit (a completley seperate section of it though) with a long glass tube that has a glass rod with kind of glass beads on the rod that goes with it but I must confess that I cant really work that one out.
I am not sure if its part of the same thing or not

[ESpy]

Possibly a fractionating column?
I remember one from school days that had glass discs all the way down a central column; the column wasn't fixed, so it could bump up & down in the vertical tube.

This would probably make far more sense if I could find a picture...

[Toddy]

got a three foot high set up in the loft.
HWMBLT won't let me play with it though ................on the other hand the pressure cooker is awfully handy, especially with a wee bit of coily copper pipe

Rich, if you get up to mischief with this we want to know

Cheers,
Toddy

[demographic]

Possibly a fractionating column?
I remember one from school days that had glass discs all the way down a central column; the column wasn't fixed, so it could bump up & down in the vertical tube.

Thats exactly what I have, I have found a diagram that shows one like it now...



PS, sorry if I have kind of de-railed this thread a bit

[Toddy]

No worries, it's an interesting ramble, and we might just thrash out a bushcrafting method of obtaining wax and or oil too

Cheers,
Toddy

[crazydave]

An old publication - Survival weaponry and techniques used to have loads on this sort of thing. every now and again the big green or brown annual turns up on ebay - along with guns it covers coppicing and hedgerow farming. I had a local old boy who to save money kept the quivalent of a couple of alotments around the local golf course. he planted veg in the trees and bushes picked the fruit for jams and coppiced the hazell to make witches brooms to sell door to door. he also had persmision from the club to snare the bunnies, he built a chicken coop in the middle of the main concourse and had a beehive tucked away in there as well - brilliant bloke who taught me a lot about attitude.

the best and easiest source of wild oil that useable for a miriad of things from bicycles and gun oil to frying fish is beech nut oil.

collect the beech cast and basically boil it to death skimming the oil off the top then allowing it to settle - crushing helps shorten the process but be warned it takes a lot, you can practise extraction using rape seed as thats easier to gather. the best wild wax is still beeswax or animal tallow - and you can eat it

other possibles from this country would be walnut or almond oil, peanuts might be a way of practicing as well and palm oil if you find the right palm. the yank sites I imagine will cover more of this in better detail.

remember though that if its bushcraft basics then all you should need is what our ancestors had - a pan, a spoon and a fire. same goes for distillation get a peach wine or similar put it in a bowl and stick in the freezer, when an ice crust forms take it off and repeat eventually you get a liquer which is how they made the stuff in the first place albeit with a bucket full on a frosty morning on the shady side of the house.

another thing to practise would be charcoal making as the residue is turps and pitch - find a local burner and offer to help. the local garden centre should be albe to put you onto the local woodman who supplies their wicker fencing and stuff.

[anthonyyy]

If you were in a laboratory there are two main methods used for extracting fats and oils from plant material.
Steam distillation or soxhlet extraction. Neither is high level science but they are both difficult to do at home.
Steam distillation involves adding water to the sample and distilling off the water plus volatile components of the sample. The distillate is then extracted with an organic solvent which is non-miscible in water. The organic layer is separated out using a separating funnel.

A soxhlet apparatus involves a placing the sample in a thimble and repeatedly washing it with hot organic solvent. A special piece of glassware is used for this. The enriched solvent is then evaporated off.

Neither of these methods particularly lend themselves to home use.
The method I gave earlier is perhaps the simplest. I did forget to mention that the solvent should be heated. With a flammable solvent this is probably best done by warming a container if it in a bowl of hot water.

Sorry if the above explanations aren’t very god but I have a dire hangover at the moment.

[Toddy]

Cheers Anthonyyy ( not literally if it's the morning after a friday nighter ) Your explanations are fine, we're just trying to work out a really simple way of making the most of the available wax from when we're out and about.
Citrus fruit skins are just squeezed and the oil collected in sponges, we don't really have any fruits here that we can do that with. Nuts like hazel and beech are good, but very seasonal, what about the evergreen leaves? Some of them you have to watch when concentrated though
I think some of the older how to alchemy texts might be more relevant than first thought for us

atb,
Toddy

[British Red]

Thats exactly what I have, I have found a diagram that shows one like it now...



PS, sorry if I have kind of de-railed this thread a bit

Yup thats a farctional distillation column. The glass discs increases the surface area to allow the steam to condense and run back. The concentration of...errm..."stuff" increases higher up the column as thw water has condesed and run back into the heating vessel. You draw the steam off the side vent and return it to liquid state using the condenser. Bad Grandad

[anthonyyy]

Cwe're just trying to work out a really simple way of making the most of the available wax from when we're out and about.

Toddy

You can rig a simple steam distillation apparatus using a pressure cooker. Connect a coil of copper for an air condenser to the hole in the lid. Chop up yer plant matter add water and distil. This will extract small amounts of delicate "essential oils" without damaging them. Normally these will float to the top of the distillate. If you add salt to the distillate it will reduce the tendency to form an emulsion. Find some way of spooning off the top layer and there you have your essential oils mixed with water.



All this isn’t rocket science but it is science nonetheless. You don’t have to go quite as far back as alchemy any organic chemistry or biochemistry textbook practical manual will give you the information you need.

To obtain larger amounts of what you call “waxes” organic solvents are the best method. You run into problems when it comes to obtaining and using organic solvents. There are environmental and safety considerations. And they can be used in the production of narcotics and explosives.

The simplest method I can think of, offhand ,is: add hot water to your chopped up plant matter, a tablespoon of salt, filter (hot), heat again, allowing to cool and separating of the layer that forms on top with a spoon. This method will give a lower yield than more advanced methods and will also damage some of the more sensitive oils and essences.

[rich59]

I needed a lubricant for some hand made cordage and tried to follow the advice of waxing it. I started off with a candle, but got quite a flaky result. I then thought about wax in leaves and tried simply rubbing the leaves (a waxy laurel) on the cordage. The result was a pretty supple cordage that did the job I asked of it.

So, one way to extract wax from leaves is simply by rubbing them. The wax is in the out coat of the leaves.
But, I am intrigued by the possibility of directing the jet of hot stuff from a char cloth making tin into water and expecting to collect wax off the surface.

[Toddy]

Excellent So the addition of salt might help the process along......salt's not beyond mortal wit to obtain in the UK, the sea is everywhere around us ....so the whole thing becomes more feasible. I've been collecting more of the cones from bog myrtle, I'm going to do a trial and see if I get a better result. ]
The reason I mentioned the alchemy links was because the old ones use very basic equipment.

Cheers,
Toddy

[rich59]

I have spent a few days thinking about stuff knocking about my garden and shed that could be made into something that I could attempt to distill off wax from leaves. I eventually came up with making a hole in an old barbecue base, sticking a charcloth making tin (stuffed with leaves) through the hole, immersing the lower end of the tin in water and then lighting a fire in the barbecue around the top of the char tin.



The result? An oily layer on the water with a very bad burnt smell that has now got onto my fingers and won't wash off!!

I poured it into a water/ oil separator and got rid of the water. I was left with the very, greasy, burnt smelling layer (with loads of charred particles in it) smeared all round the separator.

Conclusion - although a very crude experiment I did prove that there is a significant amount of wax in waxy leaves that can be separated off.

It could most probably be done much better with propper equipment - one could probably capture the oil/ wax at an early stage before the other fractions come off at much higher temperatures.

[Fluxus]

Found naturally in the stones of cherries, plums and peaches, the cores of apples and the leaves of the laurel plant, cyanide evolved as a plant protection mechanism of grazing animals (interestingly, a number of bacteria, fungi and algae are also found to produce the chemical). Ingestion of moderate amounts of these natural substances cause headaches accompanied by mild heart palpitations, more than enough to steer animals – two-legged or four – clear. However, the Middle Eastern people of ancient times made the discovery that the distillation by evaporation of laurel leaves produced lethal concentrations of this innocent plant product. from http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A4113983

see above for a word of caution on attempted distillation of laurel leaves -
I thought I remembered this from a talk by an entymologist who used crushed laurel with a solvent to kill specimens for disection. seems my memory still has some capacity.
all the best
Flux

[rich59]

Thanks for the info. Yep, cyanide is a fact of life in living and in bushcraft. We must respect any new material or new preparation of a material and never assume something is safe to ingest.