technology is pretty unsophisticated, but you need a LOT of heat for steam distillation and you better make that heat source cheap. then you just scoop it from top with organic solvent like ether. 1kg of dried plant matter gets you 12g of oil
and you have to compete with international market, with some of your competitors being used to much lower wages than you are
The “need lots of heat” requirement is for whatever reason making me imagine a nuclear lavender oil factory. I suppose it’s theoretically possible if probably economically infeasible to use a reactor for the heat source
Guess I’m going into the lavender oil business then
technology is pretty unsophisticated, but you need a LOT of heat for steam distillation and you better make that heat source cheap. then you just scoop it from top with organic solvent like ether. 1kg of dried plant matter gets you 12g of oil
and you have to compete with international market, with some of your competitors being used to much lower wages than you are
The “need lots of heat” requirement is for whatever reason making me imagine a nuclear lavender oil factory. I suppose it’s theoretically possible if probably economically infeasible to use a reactor for the heat source
you can use whatever heat source that can boil water. waste heat usually gets provided at much lower temperature
The detailed answers to a throwaway comment are far more comprehensive than I expected to read