Many small farmers are producing essential plant oils as commercial enterprises. These oils form the base for many perfumes, soaps and toiletries as well as different aroma therapies. And even when the consumer price is quite high, the farmers get only a very small part from it. One of the reasons is that these etheric oils aren’t pure enough; they are contaminated with water and thus receive a low price on the market. We tested using drying beads for drying oils, or in other words for removing the water from (and thus purifying) these etheric oils extracted from plant materials. The principle is easy: we filled a column with active beads and poured the raw etheric oils through this column. The oil will pass through to the bottom of the column, and as it passes by the drying beads on the way the water molecules will be absorbed from the oil. The purified oil can be collected at the base of the column. Because the water content in these oils is relatively low – a column of drying beads (if closed correctly before, during and after use) could be used repeatedly before requiring reactivation through the usual methods.
