Utilization of moringa oleifera leaves for making hand sanitizers to prevent the spread of COVID-19 virus

Abstract

Nowadays, the presence of Covid-19 in Indonesia is so terrible. But in truth, this virus can be prevented by maintaining personal hygiene. One of the simplest ways to maintain personal hygiene is to wash your hands and use hand sanitizers as a practical measure if there is no time to wash hands or limited water in certain places. Moringa leaves contain natural antiseptic ingredients, such as polyphenols. Antiseptic material can be processed into natural hand sanitizers. The results of various tests such as organoleptic, viscosity, scattering, and antibacterial test, shown that the percolation extraction method could produce an extract of hand sanitizers. It can be processed into hand sanitizers which comply with hand sanitizer quality standards. Moringa leaf extract hand sanitizer has many antibacterial components, namely saponins, triterpenoids, and tannins. The best result shows 24 minutes of the percolator, with heating temperature 40 °C and stirring time 45 minutes. The results obtained a viscosity of 2120 Cps, 4,79 cm of scattering test, and the average diameter of inhibition zones of 23,33 mm and fulfill the required standard.