Suspect Calamus Oil

DrugPhreak · Working Bee

SWIDP has some Indian calamus essential oil that smells just like many websites said it should, but it's very clear... almost as clear as water and is somewhat viscous. The seller says it's 100% unadulterated oil, but most of the essential oil websites state that its appearance is anywhere from pale yellow to dark brown. SWIDP has never seen asarone before, but they assume this is probably the way it looks. Of course it's not that though, but could a very high b-asarone content (>90%) make it look this way? Maybe it's put through some purification process. Any bees every get Indian calamus oil like this before? If so, did it work out well in your dreams? SWIDP plans to do a freezing and KMnO4 test soon, but they have a bad feeling about this. Maybe the asarone has been removed. Sad

Star-light · Blacklight bulb

Indian Calamus Oil is indeed normally brown in color

Your oil must either have been through some rectification/decoloration process or it is not the right product.

Try distilling it and see what fractions come over. You will know within 45 minutes whether what you have is what you want.

You could try freezing it, but this may or may not result in crystallization as you will probably have a mixture of cis- and trans- isomers.

If you do a standard isomerisation process with KOH (although in this case you are starting with a propenyl benzene), you will most likely convert the cis- product to the trans- . The trans- product will be more likely to crystallize on freezing. This last suggestion (the isomerisation) is only speculation (albeit pretty likely) however, as I have no reliable, direct information to suggest this has ever been done.

DrugPhreak · Working Bee

Yep, I guess it is double steam distilled oil. Confused

I read an MSDS on the website of a well known essential oil company and it stated that the oil was clear to pale yellow. The oil I have is actually pale yellow. Do you think they would distill it at such a high temp to remove the asarone(s) though? I put 25ml in the freezer for about 5 hours and no solids formed. The three essential oils dealers I do business with have no data whatsoever about the chemical composition of the oil and they also contacted their suppliers and they don't know if the oil is asarone-free either. Most of them can answer a question about safrole content in a matter of seconds though. Rolling Eyes

I wonder if they even know what asarone is. Confused

Isn’t asarone responsible for the majority of the smell? I guess I'll just have to wait until my vacuum gets here to see if they sell turpentine mixed with mineral sprits as calamus oil. Evil or Very Mad

IndoleAmine · Dreamreader Deluxe

DrugPhreak · Working Bee

Here's something interesting I found today...

ß-asarone (cis-isomer of 2,4,5-trimethoxy-1-propenylbenzene) is a constituent of oil of calamus, a flavouring agent derived from the dried rhizome of Acorus calamus Linn. The ß-asarone content of calamus oils varies with source of the plant. Indian Acorus calamus from the Jammu area is tetraploid and yields an oil containing approximately 75% ß-asarone; Acorus calamus from Kashmir is hexaploid and yields an oil containing approximately 5% ß-asarone (Vashist & Handa, 1964).

So some Indian oils are not even worth messing with and it's extremely hard to tell what Indian oil you have purchased prior to fractional distillation under an extraordinarily high vacuum.

Star-light · Blacklight bulb