Extração de óleo essencial de petitgrain (folha) de Citrus deliciosa Tenore por arraste a vapor em pressão sub atmosférica

Abstract

The present work shows the essential oil steam distillation extraction, one of the most important methods of essential oils extraction, through an equipment developed to allow sub-atmospheric pressures processes, ensuring the extraction of essential oils present in the plants at a lower temperature. The organic material adopted was the leaf of Citrus deliciosa Tenore, also known as mandarin and the study's purpose was to verify whether it is possible to extract essential oils using vacuum and if doing so and lowering the extraction fluid's boiling temperature, the composition and yield of the oil are changed. To do so, the extractions were made in triplicate and at four different pressures on the developed equipment, where the extracts were measured and collected for further analysis using gas chromatography with flame ionization detector. The extract's volume decreases with the pressure's decrease. The study appears to be promising, as the analysis have allowed to evaluate the essential oil composition at every pressure and it was observed that with the pressure's decrease, there was an increase at the major component methyl N-methyl anthranilate's concentration, therefore concluding that the lower the pressure operates, the higher is the major component's concentration, showing a great economic potential for this innovatory process. [resumo fornecido pelo autor]