Extraction of Essential Oil Form Sweet Lime Orange Peel: A Comparison Study

Abstract

This research work was designed to extract essential oil from sweet lime peel (solid waste). The feed material selected for study is sweet lime peel. The disposal of waste product such as peels often has a legal restriction problem and treatment process involved requires higher costs. Transformation of this waste in to useful products could cut global treatment costs. Hence the objective of our experimental work was to convert sweet lime peel in to essential oil which is in huge demand in food, pharma and cosmetic industry. In our experimental work eextraction of essential oil was evaluated and comparison study was made between steam distillation, hydro-distillation, solvent extraction and hydro-steam distillation. Maximum extraction yield of 2.4 % was achieved at 90 min of contact by hydro-distillation. Hydro-distillation method offers advantages in comparison with other three methods in terms of energy saving, cleanliness and reduced waste water. Chemical constituents of essential oil samples were evaluated in terms of qualitative and quantitative analyses by gas chromatography/mass spectrometry and physical techniques. The chemical profile includes thirty two components which were identified in the extracts by Gas chromatography-Mass spectroscopy (GC-MS) analysis. The dominant component identified was limonene (65 .2 to 72.8%).