Question

In organic lab, we did a steam distillation of the essential oil of caraway oil. In the post questions it asks for some calculation I don't understand how to get.

First ---> calculate the percent of essential oil based on the mass of caraway oil used (caraway oil used was 2.038 grams)

Second ----> assuming the reaction is quantitative, the amount of carvone originally in the extracted oil can be calculated. The amount of limonene in the oil can then be determined by subtracting the mass of the carvone calculate above from the mass of essential oil determined in the preceding paragraph. Calculate the % of each substance, limonene and carvone based on the mass of caraway oil used.

Third ---> what would be typical mass of essential oil used in this experiment if you started out in your mixture with ( 2 grams of caraway oil in 50 ml of water)

Answer 1

Method for calculation

First : percent essential oil in caraway oil = (amount of oil extracted/mass of caraway oil started with) x 100

Second : Carvone is higher boiling fraction and limonene is the lower boiling fraction of the extract

percent carvone = (mass of higher boiling fraction/mass of essential oil extracteed from caraway oil) x 100

percent limonene = (mass of lower boiling fraction/mass of essential oil extracteed from caraway oil) x 100

Third : From first we have mass of extracted esential oil from a known quantity of caraway oil

So we can easily find the mass of essential oil to be extracted from say 2 g of caraway oil by ratio proportion method.