Study on the Improvement of Essential Oil Quality and Its Repellent Activity of Betel Leaves Oil (Piper betle l.) from Indonesia

Abstract

The study to improve the quality of Indonesia betel leaves oil is done by treatment of citric acid and sodium carbonate. The treatment showed that the iron content and acid value were reduced optimally in the addition of 5% (w/w) citric acid (12 hours, 50oC) and 5% (w/w) sodium carbonate (9 hours, 50oC) yielded 0.45 mg/L of iron content and 1.00 mg/g of acid value, respectively. The main component of Indonesia betel leaves oil are 4-allyl phenylacetate. The descriptive sensory analysis showed that there were differences between betel leaves oil from Bogor compared with Boyolali and Makassar. There is a significant difference that the content of betel leaves oil from Bogor contains an isoeugenol compound of 20.71% while, Boyolali and Makassar contain eugenol of 17.02 and 19.21%, respectively. The study of the insect repellency indicated that Indonesia betel leaves oil potentially used as mosquito of Aedes aegypti repellent.