1. It should have low boiling point and should be less reactive.

It must have an appreciable vapor

pressure at 100C. (It must be volatile with steam.) It must be immiscible with water. (You have to
be able to separate it from water afterwards.)
2. Water boils at 100C, so the temperature of the oil never gets over 100C. This enables you to distil
the oil at 100C, when it might decompose at its actual atmospheric boiling point. When the water
is boiling and steam is carried over to the condenser, the water vapor crowds out oxygen and
further protects the oil from decomposition.

Steam distillation is the most common method of extracting essential oils. Steam distillation is
done in a still (The still is tall with a head and a well-insulated swan's neck preceded by a
mechanism to prevent fumes and impurities passing through). Fresh, or sometimes dried,
botanical material is placed in a closed container of the still, and pressurized steam is generated
which enters the container and circulates through the plant material. The heat of the steam forces
the intercellular pockets that hold the essential oils to open and release them. The temperature of
the steam should not be very high as it can damage the botanical material but should be high
enough to open the pockets which hold the essential oil.
Tiny droplets of essential oil evaporate and attach to the steam. The steam which then contains
the essential oil, is passed through a cooling system to condense the steam, which forms a liquid
from which the essential oil and water is then separated by decantation. The oil forms a layer on
the water surface as it does not dissolves in water and hence is separated easily.

Simple distillation can separate compounds cleanly if the difference in

boiling points between the compounds is greater than 70 C. The process is
useful to further purify relatively pure liquids, to get rid of volatile organic
solvents, or to separate the liquid from polymerization products and mineral
impurities.
Steam distillation is also used for high boiling point substances that
decompose before the boiling point is reached. In this case, instead of using a
vacuum, the liquid in question is mixed with another, immiscible liquid. The
presence of the second liquid causes both to boil at a temperature lower than
the regular boiling points of either liquid. For example, naphthalene, a solid
at room temperature that boils at 218C, can be melted and mixed with
water. Because the two are immiscible, they will steam distill at a
temperature around 90C, less than 100C (the boiling point of water) and
well below 218 C. In all steam distillations, the distillate collected will be a

mixture of both liquids, but since they are immiscible, they can generally be
separated easily via extraction.
Simple distillation is a process used to separate two liquids with boiling points that differ
by a fair amount 77 F (25 C or more) or to separate a liquid from a nonvolatile compound
with higher viscosity. The mixture is heated to the boiling point of the more volatile
compound, which is the lower of the two boiling points. The resulting vapor is collected
from the heating chamber and immediately condensed back into liquid form. This can
result in an impure distillate.