Artificial fragrance oils

Science
#1

I see lots of activity in the science section about essential oils, but is there interest in artificial scents, aromatic compounds (fragrance oils)? or is it pointless because essential oils are expensive to buy, whereas fragrance oils are cheap?

Isopropyl acetate is a pear fragrance that can be made from OTC chemicals only. It’s made by fischer esterification of acetic acid (what vinegar is made of) and isopropyl alcohol. different combinations of carboxylic acid and alcohol make a wide variety of different smells, mostly fruity but some smell like mushrooms or chocolate: https://jameskennedymonash.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/table-of-esters-and-their-smells-v2.pdf but isopropyl acetate is easiest because both isopropyl alcohol and acetic acid are readily available

it requires that both reagents are 100% water free because water is a product in the equilibrium. grocery store vinegar is only 5% acetic acid, but i think you can make 100% acetic acid by reacting it with baking soda, boiling off water and doing double decomposition w/ sulfuric acid to distill out pure acetic acid.

1 Like
#2

I think it would be interesting to be able to make artificial fragrances more safely. We were just discussing how completely unrelated things can smell so similar to each other. The science of that would be interesting to know.

#3

It has actually been discussed, David and I talked about it months ago. Well it was one of a few chemistry ideas. We were more specifically talking banana oil as one, but close enough to what you were asking. We were considering some more chemistry classes after the expansion and the fume hood is actually hooked up to vent.