Essential Oils in Chemistry

Lower Sixth chemistry students were today extracting limonene from orange peel through a process of reflux and distillation.

The chemistry lab smelled like a citrus grove as the groups of students set up their reflux experiments. Using bunsen burners and condensers to prevent evaporation, they heated their solutions of water and orange peel and afterwards distilled their solutions to extract the oil.

This experiment is part of their module covering an introduction to Organic Chemistry as part of their A-level syllabus.