What is the History of Essential Oil Testing?
Essential oils are tested using a method known as chromatography, the science of separation. Mihail Semyonovich Tswett, a Russian botanist born in 1872, is considered the father or chromatography. He coined the term in 1906 when he described his experiments using a chalk column to separate the pigments in green leaves. “Chromatography” described the colored zones that moved down the chalk column. It is believed that he chose the name by combining the Greek words Kromatos, meaning color, and graphs, meaning written. It is possible that he named the process after himself since Tswett means color in Russian. Prior to the 1970s, few reliable chromatographic methods were commercially available. Gradually, new techniques highly improved the separation, purification, and quantification of chemical compounds. Computers greatly improved the process and by the 1980s, chromatography was a commonly used analytical tool in chemical laboratories working with flavors and fragrances. Orange, tea tree,
