Alan Alberts Posted March 2, 2009 Posted March 2, 2009 Hey to all you science folk! can anyone tell me how to turn eucalyptus oil into a solid that will again disolve in water without loosing any of its potency.
UC Posted March 2, 2009 Posted March 2, 2009 Magic. No, eucalyptus oil is primarily 1,8-cineole (eucalyptol), a terpenoid and ether. It belongs in the same class of molecules as turpentine and as such behaves much like gasoline with respect to water solubility. To change the structure to make it soluble in water or solid at room temperature means it is no longer eucalyptus oil and probably would neither have the same properties nor smell (if any).
GDG Posted March 4, 2009 Posted March 4, 2009 I haven't tried this before. You could try absorbing it onto sugar. If you want to avoid having a sweet solution, you can use mannose.
CaptainPanic Posted March 4, 2009 Posted March 4, 2009 Turning it into a solid is easy: freeze it. the tricky part is dissolving it into water... that's just not going to happen. If you use eucalyptus oil in water, it forms a thin layer on top, and it does not dissolve. You should read the following wikipedia sites: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eucalyptus_oil http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eucalyptus_globulus#Essential_Oil http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cineole The cineole, also known as Eucalyptol, is insoluble in water. Often, solubility of a large organic molecule from biological origin can change its solubility as a function of the pH, but the absence of any functional groups (-COOH, -NH2, -OH) means that this cannot happen.
hermanntrude Posted March 4, 2009 Posted March 4, 2009 couldnt the ether group be protonated in acid making it more soluble? or would it just decompose?
UC Posted March 5, 2009 Posted March 5, 2009 couldnt the ether group be protonated in acid making it more soluble? or would it just decompose? Oxonium ions are not very happy ions, unlike ammoniums for example. They will slowly hydrolyze in strongly acidic conditions, but the equilibrium for [ce] R2OH^+ + H2O <-> R2O + H3O^+ [/ce] lies far to the right.
GDG Posted March 5, 2009 Posted March 5, 2009 (edited) Looking at the structure, I don't see any way to modify the molecule itself to make it water-soluble. Your best bet would be to formulate it with a surfactant or lipid, to make (respectively) an emulsion or a liposomal dispersion. It won't be a true solution. However, liposomal dispersions can be lyophilized to a dry powder (often mixed with mannitol), and instantly reconstituted by adding water. Edited March 5, 2009 by GDG formatting
UC Posted March 5, 2009 Posted March 5, 2009 Looking at the structure, I don't see any way to modify the molecule itself to make it water-soluble. Your best bet would be to formulate it with a surfactant or lipid, to make (respectively) an emulsion or a liposomal dispersion. It won't be a true solution. However, liposomal dispersions can be lyophilized to a dry powder (often mixed with mannitol), and instantly reconstituted by adding water. Sulfonating just about anything makes it water soluble, but then it'd be nonvolatile. But you'd also probably cleave the ether if you use oleum.
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