Citronellal From Citronella Oil by Way of Varying the Mixing Velocities and the Additions of Sodium Bisulfite

Abstract

At present the efforts to develop the cultivation of citronella oil has been given special attention by the Indonesian Government. From various kinds of volatile crop kinds, one that is potential to be developed is fragrant lemon grass. The fragrant lemon crops, fragnant lemongrass, which is a grass crop which belongs to the group called Cymbogon nardus, is one that has great potensial to be developed, The Technology used to produce volatile oil consist of 3 methods: pressing, solvent extraction, and distillation. This research aims is to isolation Citronellal from Citronella Oil. In this research the method used was refining the vapour and the water, followed by isolating citronellal from citronella oil and adding natrium bisulfite solution. This addition was aimed at acquiring the maximum level of citronellal that could be used as an active material for termiside or bakterial medicines. The research result showed that the best quality of citronella was acquired when the Natrium Bisulfite addition was 20 gram, and the mixing velocity 150 rpm, producing 40.26% level of geraniol with a density of 0,8867 gram/ml. Key words: Isolation, Natrium Bisulfite, Cymbopogan Winterianus, Sitronellal