Extraction of orange peel’s essential oil by solvent-free microwave extraction

Abstract

Sweet orange peel (Citrus sinensis) is part of orange plant that contains essential oils. Generally, taking essential oil from orange peel is still using hydrodistillation and steam-hydrodistillation method which still needs solvent and takes a long time to produce high quality essential oil. Therefore, the objectives of this experiment are to study the process of orange peel’s essential oil extraction using Solvent Free Microwave Extraction (SFME) and to study the operating condition that effect an optimum yield and quality of the essential oil. In this experiment, extraction process with SFME method goes for 60 minutes at atmospheric pressure. Variables for SFME are: variation of orange peel condition (fresh and dry), ratio orange peel mass to distiller volume (0,1; 0,2; 0,3; 0,4 g/mL), orange peel size (±0,5; ±2; ±3,5 cm width), and microwave power (100, 264, 400 Watt). Moisture content of fresh peel is 71,4% and for dry peel is 17,37% which is obtained by sun drying. The result of this experiment will be analyzed with GC-MS, SEM, density, and miscibility in ethanol 90%. The optimum result obtained from this experiment based on the number of the yield under condition of fresh orange peel is at peel mass/distiller volume 0,1 g/mL, orange peel size ±3,5 cm width, and microwave power 400 Watt, results 1,6738% yield. The result of GC-MS for fresh orange peel shows that the dominant compound is Limonene 54,140% and for dry orange peel is Limonene 59,705%. The density obtained is around 0,8282-0,8530 g/mL and miscibility in ethanol 90% is 1:5.