Solvent-free microwave extraction of essential oil from Melaleuca leucadendra L.

Department of Chemical Engineering, Faculty of Industrial Engineering, Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember, Surabaya, Indonesia 60111

^* Corresponding author: mahfud@chem-eng.its.ac.id

Abstract

Cajuput (Melaleuca leucadendra L.) oil is one of potential commodity that provides an important role for the country’s foreign exchange but the extraction of these essential oil is still using conventional method such as hydrodistillation which takes a long time to produce essential oil with good quality. Therefore it is necessary to optimize the extraction process using a more effective and efficient method. So in this study the extraction is done using solvent-free microwave extraction method that are considered more effective and efficient than conventional methods. The optimum yield in the extraction of cajuput oil using solvent-free microwave extraction method is 1.0674%. The optimum yield is obtained on the feed to distiller (F/D) ratio of 0.12 g/mL with microwave power of 400 W. In the extraction of cajuput oil using solvent-free microwave extraction method is performed first-order and second-order kinetics modelling. Based on kinetics modelling that has been done, it can be said that the second-order kinetic model (R² = 0.9901) can be better represent experimental results of extraction of cajuput oil that using solvent-free microwave extraction method when compared with the first-order kinetic model (R² = 0.9854).