Recovery of water-soluble constituents of rose oil using simultaneous distillation-extraction

Recovery of water-soluble constituents of rose oil from aqueous solutions using simultaneous distillation-extraction was studied. Experiments were carried out using a modified Likens-Nickerson apparatus. A preliminary study was first performed on aqueous 2-phenylethanol solutions. Using n-butyl acetate as the solvent, the effects of extraction time, solvent volume and solute concentration on recovery yields were investigated. The optimum experimental conditions obtained from the preliminary study were applied to extract rose oil constituents from actual aqueous solutions, such as rose water, second distillation water and residual water of Iranian rose (Rosa damascena Mill). The results show that a representative extract with recovery of the most valuable constituents of rose oil was carried out successfully. Copyright (c) 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.