Extracting Menthol From Mint Leaves *RE-UPLOAD*

In this video, I extract menthol from mint leaves, and further purify it.
If you attempt to extract menthol yourself, I do not recommend that you try to consume or otherwise use it, and only do so to explore the science of isolating naturally occurring compounds.
Menthol is sometimes used to treat sore muscles and cold/flu symptoms. One method for treatment involves melting a small amount of menthol into a bowl of boiling water and using a towel to cover the bowl and the face, making it easy to breathe in the steam which carries the vapours.

[@Slasho58]

Please don't stop the video, they are unique and pretty useful!

[@alexandernellaw5906]

The white background makes it hard to see what's going on in the glassware. Especially with clear liquids.

[@arsamariannezhad9633]

I have too many mint my front yard and I don't know what to do with them so I'm watching your video

[@wolfwalker5924]

Wow, such a lot of effort to get just a wee bit of menthol crystals. Now I know why it's so expensive. Would appreciate it if you could identify the equipment set up parts by name, and let us know where they may be purchased. Could this be partially accomplished with an Alembic set up? This may be material for another video. Thank you for this.

[@aloesci5292]

True! I used a borosilicate glass simple distillation apparatus (about £30-50 on eBay). I don't see any reason why an alembic still wouldn't work for this, you would just have to judge when you aren't getting any more oil from the cloudiness of the distillate alone because you can't see into the condenser like you can with a glass one.

[@ndo104no]

I got a 2oz jar for $19 usd. I'm sure everyone here is aware of how quickly mint grows and how hard it is to control once it settles in. Mass harvesting I'm sure is not so complex as to make the final product pricy.

[@hmm_silas]

Anyway I can make it without all the fancy equipment?

[@naes_pov02]

Yk I was just inhaling menthol crystals and I couldn’t help but wonder how it was made 😂👍 thank youuuu so much for this

[@crystina99]

I believe this is not now menthol crystals are made because this is a warm extract to create the oil which is needed to make the crystal with a process made at cold. In the end what he shows are not menthol crystals but the left overs of the process separated from the essential oil. Am I correct?

[@michaelsuk6440]

Don’t plant a mint plant in your garden, put it in a separate pot. Mint plants are extremely invasive and spread like weeds very quickly, depriving everything else in your garden of nutrients. It’s also very hard to kill. My neighbors have a mint garden (started as one plant) and they let us take as much as we want because it grows faster than you can use it.

[@madansharma2700]

Good video.

[@richardliu1657]

can you please tell me where I can buy organic herbal tea tree leaves and other leaves for making my own essential oils, thank you.

[@matthewread8473]

Is that food grade? And if I wanted to add that to a medicinal oil, would it easily incorporate into solution? And if so, would it separate out once cooled to room temp

[@aloesci5292]

I would not be comfortable using it as food grade by this method because of the solvent. You could however obtain food grade mint oil by steam distillation and try to seperate the oil directly from the water as it should be immiscible. You will need a lot of mint though to get enough oil to make this separation easy, and once you have the oil you can 'freeze' it using with a CaCl2-ice bath to crystallise food grade menthol out of the oil directly. Menthol is soluble in oils by warming them together and shouldn't seperate out. I just didn't have enough mint or patience ;)

[@matthewread8473]

@@aloesci5292 thank you so much for the response, that has helped me out more than you know 🙏

[@alikkamablecangco1636]

Sir, how do you mean by this exactly? Can u tell us the exact process?

[@muzaffaryusupov6435]

Unfortunately i don't have DCM solvent, what solvents can I use instead?

[@jsjsjjsud9556]

Possibly chcl3

[@user-zp2mh6bj8i]

Coooooooool. I like nature chemistry

[@kenansry]

This method called hydrodistillation, right?

[@bannor216]

oddly relaxing video

[@ndo104no]

What unit of measurement are you using? Metric or imperial?

[@happy_bubble7]

Just out of curiosity... why does the description say not to make it for the purpose of using the end result?

[@staceymcdermott4954]

Bit off topic hear but would this also work for collecting cannabis terps

[@ndo104no]

Should be siphoning the top off with a beaker or something for greater accuracy.

[@mindofgamers4562]

Wow, your Videos are great, this IS the First one i sse fromnyou, but its fantastic!

[@classic1919f]

Nice work 👏 keep going 👍

[@MaryamSidiqah-qx5sh]

Nice info.

[@alikkamablecangco1636]

Hi, can we ask for your name? So we could put your video on our research paper as source of information?

[@aloesci5292]

J. S. Poxon :)

[@jaf6300]

@@aloesci5292 are you a chemist?

[@IIIZeldaIII]

why dont you reccomend to use it? i have a still and unlimited mint...

[@thatkjguy0]

Thanks

[@crystina99]

J.s. poxon thank you for your sharing!!! Maybe you are the rightest person I can ask these questions I have since a while... How are menthol crystals made? Those that are made with a cold process of the essential oil.. Is it possible to make menthol crystals not from actual mint essential oil? If so. What do they use?? I can't find this answer anywhere and I'm sorry to bother you but I hope you can help 😅❤🌈

[@minerofskies2451]

Do you mean actually synthesizing it from scratch? A lot of the suggested methods seem a lot more complicated and time-consumming than steam distillation/getting it from the essential oil.

[@hamzashaheen3581]

I Want To Repeat Your process Here Can It Work With Ethyl ester As A Solvent Instead The DCM

[@amalgergis6191]

Well, screw college chemistry

[@tenkenryujin295]

Is acetone bad? Like if u breath it in

[@Slasho58]

Why did you stop?

[@definitelynotyuribezmenov7611]

Nice channel,subbed

[@Sayeedur123]

Nice stuff :)

[@aloesci5292]

Thank you!

[@maui3947]

No way it's you lol

[@juggalo4lyfe696]

Why does the show breaking bad seem to come to mind

[@CatboyChemicalSociety]

now use it to make sodium metal

[@mrtolson]

Cool.

[@NightfallShadow]

I would rather just add them to vodka, put them in a jar and wait 2 months.

[@panz3rvi638]

Is that you jake?

[@aloesci5292]

Yep ;)

[@vaatwasdotcom]

Good movie man. Could you also use hexane instead of CH2CL2 ? What would be te difference ?

[@SuperRaniverma]

The white background makes it hard to see what's going on in the glassware. Especially with clear liquids