Essential Oil Extraction of Cananga odorata Flowers using Hydrodistillation and Steam-Water Distillation Processes

Abstract

This paper discussed about the effect of distillation processes in the extraction of cananga essential oil from Cananga odorata.In this research, cananga oils were extracted by steam-water distillation and hydrodistillation processes. The equipment used in this current research is a distillation home scale set-up plant which further will be applied on cananga local farmer in Sukorambi region, Jember district. Therefore, preliminary optimization process for this distillation equipment was required. The distillation batch (retort) contained 2 kg of cananga flowers and 20 L of water. Based on research result, the distillation equipment could run hydrodistillation process for 3 hours, while in steam-water distillation set-up could only run for 2 hours. The volume of water in distillation batch was a limiting factor in both processes. In general, the yield of essential oil was increase along the longer of distillation time that have been applied. However, the result showed that essential oil from hydrodistillation for 1 hour had the best quality compared to other distillation conditions, in terms of its volatile compound contents. Oxygenated hydrocarbons content in cananga oil from 1 hour hydrodistillation process (56.5%) was highest compared to 2 and 3 hour hydrodistillation (35.48% and 22.36%, respectively), and even to essential oil from steam-water distillation process (43.25%). Generally, extra grade cananga oil was markedly by the high content of esters, and linalool, but low in β-caryophyllene content. These characteristics could be found in cananga oil obatined from hydrodistillation process for 1 hour which contained major volatile compounds, i.e. geranyl acetate (16.58%), benzyl benzoate (13.38%), β-caryophyllene (16.35%), germacrene D (15.3%), and farnesol (9.54%). However, linalool was only found in cananga oil from steam-water distillation. Therefore the current distillation condition, hydrodistillation for 1 hour, would be applied in distillation of cananga oil at Jember local community.