Utilização de enzimas para a obtenção de óleos essenciais e cumarinas da casca de Citrus latifolia Tanaka

Abstract

Citrus latifolia Tanaka (Tahiti lime) essential oil has a high commercial value and a large application in different industries. The enzymatic extraction of vegetable oils increases yields extraction, energy efficient and cause minimal environmental impact, but few studies have evaluated its use for the extraction of essential oils from aromatic plants. As a result, this study aimed to contribute to the development of enzymatic technology for extraction of essential oil from peels of C. latifolia Tanaka, and assess the proportion of bioactive compounds such as coumarins, in wastes extraction processes. To do so, it was performed enzymatic pretreatment of the peels, through a complex composed primarily of cellulases, characterized in filter paper (FPA), and subsequent extraction of oil by hydrodistillation. In the first three experiments were evaluated the effect of enzyme loading (5, 7 and 12 FPA/g substrate), the effect of time of enzymatic pretreatment (1, 2 and 3 hours) and the effect of pretreatment on crushed peels, on yield and composition of essential oil obtained by 1 hour hydrodistillation. In another test, it was evaluated the possibility of reducing the time hydrodistillation by enzymatic pretreatment, using loads of 5, 7 and 12 FPA/g of crushed peels, calculating the oil yield during the hydrodistillation at different intervals time (10, 15, 20, 30, 40, 50 and 60 minutes). The coumarins were extracted from the liquid and solid wastes from hydrodistillations with hexane through liquid-liquid extraction and soxhlet, respectively. The analysis of the compounds of essential oils and coumarins were made by gas chromatography (GC) and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC / MS). In the first three experiments described not statistical differences were found between the oil yields of enzymatically pretreated samples and controls, demonstrating that the enzymatic pretreatment did not affect the oil yield obtained by 1 hour hydrodistillation. However, the analysis of the oil components allowed to observe an increase in the proportions of some oxygenated compounds (p < 0,05), responsible for the quality of aroma. In the experiment where was evaluated the short-time hydrodistillation, it was found that pretreatment with a load of 5 FPA/g reached the maximum yield of about 30 minutes from the distillation process, while in the control the maximum yield was about 50 minutes. Using the load of 7 FPA/g, the maximum yield was reached in about 20 minutes, the same happened with the load of 12 FPA/g, while in the control was around 40 and 50 minutes, respectively. These results indicate that enzymatic pretreatment reduces the time hydrodistillation with advantages in terms of cost efficiency and integrity of the oil components, since the reduction in exposure time of the plant material at a temperature of boiling water, pointing out the foundation for a technological process that involves enzyme pretreatment associated with hydrodistillation to be employed in obtaining essential oil of C. latifolia Tanaka. For the coumarins, the results indicated that the percentage of most of these compounds was not altered when the samples were enzymatically pretreated. However, it is proposed that the waste generated by hydrodistillation can be recovered and used as a source of coumarins.