DEVELOPMENT OF A MICROWAVE SYSTEM FOR EXTRACTION OF ESSENTIAL OIL FROM GAHARU (AQUILARIA MALACCENSIS)

Abstract

Microwave-assisted Extraction (MAE) process is a high speed method that has been used to extract constituents from plant material. This method has shown tremendous research interest and big potential in industries. The designed was originally developed for the extraction of fragrance from plants materials, which carried out by different techniques that require lot of energy or a long time or both combinations. In this study, the important process parameters such as microwave power, temperature and extraction time of MAE are controlled to obtain the highest yield of extracted essential oil. The microwave extraction method for the essential oil form Aquilaria malaccensis or gaharu is compared with the conventional extraction technique (CET). In such a way to obtain the first droplet of distillation, it is necessary to heat up only 10-13 minutes with MAE against 25 minutes with CET. After 60 minutes, it is possible to collect sufficient essential oil which provides comparable yields to those obtained with 8 hours by CET. MAE gives higher percentage yield of oil with 0.016% for hydro distillation while the percentage yield of oil obtained by the CET is only 0.140% after a long time of extraction. Gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) is used for detection and identification of the extracted compounds. This project is also looking for the various techniques of extraction process such as hydro, dry and steam distillation techniques. The results from each technique were presented.