How is sandalwood extracted?

1. Distillation method: The common method for extracting sandalwood essential oil is to soak fresh or dried sandalwood in water for a certain period of time, and put it into an essential oil distillation container for distillation to obtain a mixture of sandalwood essential oil and sandalwood pure dew. In the splitter, the essential oil will be separated in the upper layer, and the sandalwood pure dew will be extracted separately.

2. Solvent extraction method: soak sandalwood in organic solvent for a certain period of time, filter out sandalwood residue, and evaporate the solvent mixed with essence through circulation. Usually, this solvent can be recovered, leaving the essential oil. Although this extraction process can better preserve essential oil substances, this extraction method is not used for sandalwood essential oil, which is usually used for aromatherapy, because it involves solvent residues.

3.CO2 extraction: actually, it is also a solvent extraction method. However, because there is no residual carbon dioxide, this extraction method is called supercritical extraction, and the obtained essential oil perfectly retains the plant components. However, this extraction method is very expensive and not widely used at present, but as an expensive sandalwood essential oil, a considerable part of it is extracted in this way.