Distilled Sweet Orange Oil

#### Orange Oil, Sweet, distilled. The production of distilled orange oil has paralelled the rapidly growing orange juice industry, and has now reached the point where neither the flavor nor the perfume industry can absorb the hundreds of tons of "by-product" from the juice factories. Distilled sweet orange oil is of very little flavor value, but does have some use in perfumes, e.g. industrial masking odors and low-cost perfumes for household products, cleansers, detergents, etc. The oil is produced - by steam distillation of the peels after they have been expressed, - by steam distillation of the press cakes of peels (e.g. Spanish method); - by steam distillation of sweet orange peels which have not previously been used for expression of oil (not all factories have facilities for cold-expressing the oil); - by distillation of the sweet orange juice, since during the evaporation in vacuum (= production of concentrated orange juice), significant amounts of "oil" are collected in the receiver with the condensed juice-waters. The juice also inevitably contains some peel oil from the machine-processed fruit. Method No. 1 is the main supplier of all distilled orange oils. Method No. 4 yields a different oil, containing the aromatic principles of the juice, including certain aldehydes, and, since these are flavor principles in the oil, this distilled oil may have a higher aldehyde content than the expressed oil. Some manufacturers will "reconstitute" the concentrated juice by adding this oil to the juice concentrate before canning it. Distilled sweet orange oil is produced in the U.S.A. (Florida, Texas and California) and, to a small extent, also in Italy, Spain and Israel. The oil is a very pale yellow or almost colorless mobile liquid of fresh, sweet, not very rich odor, very poor in tenacity. Only freshly produced or well preserved oils have fresh odors. Distilled oils become rancid or oxidized more quickly than do the expressed oils. It is customary to add an antioxidant to such oils at the place of production. A wide range of effective antioxidants is at our disposal for use in perfumery oils: n-propylgallate, dodecyl gallate, butyl hydroxyanisole, butyl hydroxy-toluene, alpha-tocopherol, NDGA, various alkoxy-hydroquinones, etc., supported by trace amounts of ascorbic acid, citric acid, etc. Not all of these materials have been accepted for use in food (flavors) on a world-wide scale. However, certain combinations of the above antioxidants are effective (when boosted with one of the acids) at concentrations of about 0.005% in the orange oil. This concentration equals a maximum of about 2 micrograms (0.002 milligrams) of antioxidant per *kilo *of food or beverage. No doubt, we are consuming much more than that quantity of "other, unknown, foreign matter" during the day. Significant amounts of distilled orange oil are used in the adulteration of expressed orange oil and other expressed citrus oils. For flavoring purposes, such an addition is definitely detrimental. Distilled oils are not suitable for the production of terpeneless oils or other concentrates (a concentrate of distilled lime oil does exist, however). Distilled sweet orange oil finds extensive use in the duplication of bergamot oil, bergamot compositions, etc. Large quantities of distilled orange oil are re-distilled under vacuum. The "isolated" d-limonene finds extensive use in the chemical industry (synthetic carvone, etc.) and in industrial perfumery.