Microwave assisted hydro-distillation (mhd) of citronella oil from lemongrass plants (cymbopogon nardus): effect of distiller size on oil yield

The essential oil from Cymbopogon nardus is widely used in industry, especially medicine and perfume. The microwave assisted method has been successfully applied to a laboratory extraction scale, namely Microwave Hydrodistillation. Therefore, it is necessary to increase the distiller capacity to increase the amount of essential oil obtained. The purpose of this study was to increase the scale of the extraction space through hydrodistillation made from microwaves to produce citronella oil with high yield. It was extracted compared to three distillers 1, 2 and 3 L. The feed to solvent ratio marked as F/S was 0.05 - 0.15 g / and microwave power was 400 – 800 W and extraction time 20 – 60 min. The yield obtained slightly decreased with increasing distiller volume for power parameters and F/S ratio. The highest extraction results using the MHD method occurred at 0.5 cm of material size, 800 W of power and 0.05 g / ml of F/S ratio was 1.81%. GC-MS analysis of citronella oil obtained from the dry leaf extract of Cymbopogon nardus showed that the main bioactive composition of citronella oil was citronell, geraniol, and citronellol at 73.76%. Therefore, it makes sense to extract citronella oil from the dried leaves of Cymbopogon nardus by using a larger distiller size.