Question

The ancient technique of extraction of aromatic compounds from flowers, fruits, etc using fat is known as:

• A. Expression
• B. Super critical extraction
• C. Enfleurage
• D. Distillation

Hint:

Enfleurage is rarely used today due to high labor costs. Most modern industries use "Solvent Extraction" or "Supercritical $CO_2$ Extraction" instead.

Answer 1

The Correct Option is C

Delicate flowers such as jasmine keep releasing fragrance even after being picked, and they cannot survive the heat of steam distillation without losing that scent. An old French technique gets around this by spreading odourless fat over glass plates and laying fresh petals on top, letting the fat slowly absorb the fragrance over several days as spent flowers are replaced with fresh ones. The scented fat that results, called a pomade, is later processed with alcohol to isolate the pure oil. This cold fat based extraction method is called enfleurage.