PERTANIKA JOURNAL OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES

 

e-ISSN 2231-8534
ISSN 0128-7702

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Optimisation of Water Soluble Essential Oil from Lemongrass Leaves using Steam Distillation

S. F. Lim, P. Y. L. Pah, S. N. David Chua and H. T. Nicholas Kuan

Pertanika Journal of Social Science and Humanities, Volume 25, Issue S, May 2017

Keywords: Essential oil, lemongrass leaves, optimisation, steam distillation

Published on: 01 Nov 2017

Lemongrass leaves are often under-utilised and unexploited. In this study, lemongrass leaves were used to produce water soluble essential oil using a steam distillation system. Water steam was passed through the lemongrass leaves which were placed and supported on a grid above the water in a distiller. The steam distillation system was fabricated and optimised using Response Surface Methodology (RSM). The maximum oil yield with optimal relative citral content is obtained at 6.69 of plant-to-water ratio, 26.68 minutes of distillation time using air-dried lemongrass leaves left under the shade for two days. At the optimum conditions, the predicted oil yield was 0.6719% of lemongrass (C. citratus) oil which contains 71.79% of citral content.

ISSN 0128-7702

e-ISSN 2231-8534

Article ID

JST-0243-2016

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