Investigation of geranium oil extraction performance by using soxhlet extraction

Abstract

Geranium oil (Pelargonium graveolens) is widely used as main ingredient in the production of perfumes as well as cosmetics etc. The essential oil is also used in aromatherapy treatment in various health issues occurred in rural areas. In literature, several authors are used the different traditional extraction methods; such as steam distillation, hydro distillation and solvent extraction etc. In this work, author used the novel technique as soxhlet extraction of geranium oil extraction. The purpose of this work is to investigate the suitable method for getting the higher yield with lower cost and limited facilities. To investigated the performance of soxhlet extraction technique by using different organic solvents like n-Hexane, Methanol, Chloroform, Toluene and Water. Among all the solvents, n-Hexane and Toluene are provided the satisfactory results with soxhlet extraction of geranium oil yield as 0.08–0.1 %. The operating conditions of soxhlet extraction as Temperature (60–12 °C) and time (120–240 min). Also, the author calculated the Mass & Energy balances of soxhlet extraction are 6 (V/W) and 75 KW-Hr, whereas for steam distillation Mass & Energy balances are 0.5 (V/W) and 42 KW-Hr. Even though the yield is small compared to steam distillation, but this work will be applicable for lab scale extraction of geranium oil as well as essential oils with lower cost.