Central Composite Design, Kinetic Model, Thermodynamics, and Chemical Composition of Pomelo (Citrus Maxima (Burm.) Merr.) Essential Oil Extraction by Steam Distillation

Abstract

Pomelo peel-derived essential oils have been gaining popularity due to greater demand for stress relief therapy or hair care therapy. In this study, we first performed optimization of parameters in the pomelo essential oil extraction process on a pilot scale to gain better insights for application in larger scale production. Then extraction kinetics, activation energy, thermodynamics, and essential oil quality during the extraction process were investigated during the steam distillation process. Three experimental conditions including material mass, steam flow rate, and extraction time were taken into consideration in response surface methodology (RSM) optimization. The optimal conditions were found as follows: sample weight of 422 g for one distillation batch, steam flow rate of 2.16 mL/min and extraction time of 106 min with the coefficient of determination R2 of 0.9812. The nonlinear kinetics demonstrated the compatibility of the kinetic model with simultaneous washing and unhindered diffusion with a washing rate constant of 0.1515 min−1 and a diffusion rate constant of 0.0236 min−1. The activation energy of the washing and diffusion process was 167.43 kJ.mol−1 and 96.25 kJ.mol−1, respectively. The thermodynamic value obtained at the ΔG° value was −35.02 kJ.mol−1. The quality of pomelo peel essential oil obtained by steam distillation was characterized by its high limonene content (96.996%), determined by GC-MS.

Modeling the extraction process of pomelo (citrus maxima (burm.) Merr.) Peel essential oil by steam distillation on a production scale (500kg/batch)

“…This is consistent with earlier experimental results (Figures 2-4), which demonstrate that the production of essential oils grows quickly in the early stage (i.e., rapid distillation, immediate washing phase), slows down until virtually constant oil yield, and then increases again (i.e. slow, diffuse distillation phase) [20,21]. Three kinetic stages can be seen for the majority of the time points, as shown in Figure 2-4.…”

“…Indeed, the current extraction processes of pomelo essential oil are described by instantaneous washing followed by diffusion. The extraction processes were demonstrated from experimental data at experimental scales of 100g [23] to 1000g scales [21], pilot scales of 5000g [18], and, more specifically, in this study at a production scale of 500 kg. The aforementioned arguments demonstrate that Equation ( 2) accurately captures the experimental data of pomelo essential oil extraction across all production scales.…”

Effect of chemical pretreatment on quality attributes of the cashew apple

“…Further numerical optimization was done to determine the optimum conditions for maximum inhibition of enzyme activity with better color retention, minimum usage of chemical concentration, and lesser dipping time. Equation (3) calculated desirability (D), where the desirability index (di) is used, which was calculated by Equation ( 4), depending on maximizing and minimizing the target response (Dao, Nguyen, Tran, Le, et al, 2021). Further, optimum conditions were verified by performing experiments with obtained processing conditions, and then physiochemical characteristics of the fruit were tested for validation.…”

A Study on Factors Influencing the Hydrodistillation of <i>Triphasia trifolia</i> Essential Oil

“…The EOs are characterized by high content of sabine (leaf: 31.1%, stem: 21.1%, fruit: 23.9%), and β-pinene (leaf: 40.8%, stem: 36.2%, fruit: 32.4%). It is worth mentioning that the chemical composition of a substance may vary with harvest time and geographical location [27].…”