In recent years, sales for essential oils have exploded. Essential oils are usually oils which are derived from, or include certain essential components or essences of different plant substances. Such oils are generally ingested, topically applied, or are breathed in through various methods of diffusion or atomization.
Essential oils, known as nature's living energy, are the natural, aromatic volatile liquids found in shrubs, flowers, trees, resins, fruit peels, rhizomes, roots, bushes, and seeds. The distinctive components in essential oils defend plants against insects, environmental conditions, and disease. They are also vital for a plant to grow, live, evolve, and adapt to its surroundings. Essential oils are extracted from aromatic plant sources via steam distillation, cold pressing, and other types of extraction and/or distillation. Essential oils are highly concentrated and far more potent than dry herbs. Other topically applied oils may include olive oil, almond oil, coconut oil, fatty acid oils, etc., and oils high in esters, such as jojoba oil, and waxes such as beeswax.
While essential oils often have a pleasant aroma, their chemical makeup is complex and their benefits vast—which makes them much more than something that simply smells good. Historically, essential oils have played a prominent role in everyday life. With more than 200 references to aromatics, incense, and ointments throughout the Bible, essential oils are said to be used for anointing and healing the sick. Today, essential oils are used for aromatherapy, massage therapy, emotional health, personal care, nutritional supplements, household solutions, and much more.
Diffusers for essential oils have been used to disperse the essential oils for breathing or to create a pleasant fragrance in a room or area. However, available diffusers for use with most essential oils are almost always unreliable with short service lives and high failure rate, and have to be refilled often. Additionally, most diffusers only operate for limited durations of a few hours before depleting the aromatic compounds. Many problems can be mitigated with meticulous care in maintaining the diffuser, which is beyond the capacity and patience of the average user.
Many types of available diffusers use a piezo-electric ultrasonic transducer to agitate the water's surface, where essential oils reside, into water and essential vapor. The water has essential oils mixed in, some of which is transported along with the water into the air with a blower or fan. One of the greatest complaints with these types of diffusers is the low intensity of the essential oil aromas produced. The piezo transducer is located within the water and oil reservoir. When the water runs out, or is left to sit and evaporate, residual oils tend to collect on the piezo transducer. Accumulations of the oils on the piezo transducer reduce the effectiveness, and eventually cause failure of the diffuser, often in very short order. Users are instructed to carefully clean the diffuser after each use, including cleaning the transducer with a detergent. However, users often neglect this task or clean too vigorously, damaging or destroying the sensitive piezo transducer.
Other diffusers use small fans or microblowers using traditional rotating fans. In small or micro fans, such microblowers are fairly inefficient, only supplying between about 5.5 and 60 Pa of pressure with a power consumption of between about 0.1 and 1.1 Watts with dimensions less than 25×25 mm. Any larger fans are not really microfans or microblowers. Such microfans also tend to have fairly short lives making diffusers run with such fans undesirable and inefficient. Additionally, such microfans are also unable to generate enough pressure through a small tube in order to push air through oil to create air saturated with oil for dispersion, but instead only generates sufficient air pressure to move air across the surface of oil, such as is shown in US Patent Pub. 2007/0138326.