Effect of Microwave Pretreatment on Gaharu Essential Oil Using Hydrodistillation Method

Abstract

Gaharu wood produces an expensive essential oil due to its fragrance and chemical compounds. Normally, the black color wood is used for the extraction of oil because it contains high resin. However, the cost of this resinous wood is very expensive. Therefore, in this study, the raw material with low resin content (identified by the white color of the wood) will be used for the extraction of oil. However, hydrodistillation alone will not produce satisfactory volume. Thus, pretreatment is needed to enhance the amount of essential oil. This paper aims to investigate the effect of microwave pretreatment on gaharu essential oil extraction using the hydrodistillation method for the lower grade wood. The gaharu wood was pre-treated with microwave irradiation power of 800 kW at three different durations which were 1, 2 and 3 min. Later, extraction was performed using the hydrodistillation method for 30 h. The chemical composition of the oil was analyzed using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GCMS). The results show that microwave pretreatment produced higher yield (0.0379 wt.%) of gaharu essential oil compared to the extraction of the non-pretreated wood (0.0286 wt.%) in which the increase was 24.55%. The three minutes pretreatment time produced the largest amount of oil (0.0877 wt.%). The outcomes of this study indicated the increase of chemical components of gaharu essential oils such as (+)-Epi-bicyclosesquiphellandrene, gurjunene, α-farnese, estragole, guaiene, valencene, spathulenol, α-cubebene and (-)-Spathulenol in the extraction of the pre-treated wood compared to the non-pretreated one.

Preliminary study on agarwood essential oil and its classification techniques using machine learning

“…Essential oils can be extracted by a variety of extraction techniques. Distillation (hydro-distillation, steam distillation and water distillation) and solvent extraction are currently employed often to extract essential oil from plants [1], [3], [5], [6], [13]- [19]. Distillation is an early technique used to separate chemical compounds that is widely employed in the petroleum, natural gas, and petrochemical industries.…”

“…The current findings determined manually by sensory evaluations differ according to whether the testers have a keen feel for judging the grades of essential oil or not. Thus, similarly to the earlier approach, limited dependability is projected since it relies on the human nose, which cannot maintain a high number of samples due to quick fatigue, zero consistency and time-consuming process [5], [6], [9], [10].…”

Current trends in essential oil (EO) production

“…The radiation penetrates the cell and results in heating of the moisture present in it. This microwave heating facilitates evaporation of the moisture which results in exertion of tremendous amount of pressure on the cell wall membrane causing its rupture [44]. With increment in the pre-treatment time from 1 to 2 min at a microwave power of 800 kW, the yield of Gahuru (Agarwood) wood EO improved from 0.0379 wt.% to 0.0779 wt.% and on further increasing the pre-treatment time from 2 to 3 min, the yield improved from 0.0779 wt.% to just 0.0877 wt.% [44].…”

Pengaruh Ukuran Partikel, Perbandingan Jumlah Pelarut dan Waktu Maserasi terhadap Perolehan Rendemen Aquilaria Malaccensis Lam.

“…Peneliti terdahulu telah melakukan beberapa metode untuk memperoleh rendemen yang optimal, diantarnya menggunakan; metode hydrotropic extraction [11] yang disampaikan bahwa metode tersebut dapat meningkatkan proses ektraksi minyak atsiri. metode hydrodistillation [12], fermentasi [13], dan juga maserasi [14]. Selain penentuan metode yang digunakan, jenis pelarut juga menjadi variable penting untuk ditinjau.…”