extracting the moss (3) soxhlet distillation

1. experiment with soxhlet distillation



- 96% ethanol +- 150 ml
- 3 teabags with the moss

Soxhlet distillation is like dry-cleaning.
Normally hexane is being used for retrieving essential oils.





Alcohol vapors and then condenses again.
Because it repeats itself, I let it go while I was preparing dinner and feeding my son.
But that was not a good idea.
The heater was perhaps set too strong.
The flask got a little burned,
and the result did not smell like the moss at all.
It smelled like green tea which is been infused too long.

2. experimenting with the conservation methods

Dealing with the scent means dealing with the evaporation and decay.
Conservation is a profession itself, so it's not that easy.

I devided 160ml distilled moss water of yesterday's in two: 80 ml each,
and tried 2 things.

[1] conservation with the salt
The same principle with making pickles.
I added 4% of salt so that it became close to the sea water.



[2] conservation with Roconxal
Roconxal is being used often for cosmetics. It does not function when pH is above 5.
With the pH paper I carefully added lactone - when I added 3 drops it became pH 4.
But there was one problem: Roconxal was not water based!
Now I have to look for something alternative.