Compositional analysis of essential oils extracted from lemongrass, basil and coriander leaves by different hydrodistillation methods

The Ohmic Hydrodistillation (OHD) extraction system has been designed and setup for the extraction of essential oil from different plant species as basil, lemongrass and coriander. Essential oils have many antimicrobial properties and used for medicinal purpose and flavouring agents. OHD extraction system also been compared to Conventional Hydrodistillation (CHD) method. OHD method resulted in 50% (2.5 hours of extraction time) reduction in extraction time with 0.41 kW power consumption as compared to CHD process which took 5 hrs time and 0.5 kW power. The linalool was (CHD- 0.044%, OHD-0.217%) and Estragole component (CHD - 0.105%, OHD- 0.339%), Geranial Acetate (CHD-0.018%, OHD-0.006%) and Gama-Terpinene (CHD-0.008%, OHD-0.008%) in essential oil of Basil. The components in Lemongrass essential oil obtained were Limonene (CHD-0.005%, OHD-0.005%), Geranial Acetate (CHD-0.043%, OHD-0.015%), Neral (CHD-5.326%, OHD-13.013%) and Geranial (CHD-7.218%, OHD-13.20%). Coriander essential oil consisted mainly of linalool (CHD-0.046%, OHD-0.043%). Quantity of essential oils obtained from the basil, lemongrass and coriander using both methods as (i) by conventional hydro distillation (CHD): 0.33±0.007%, 0.66±0.03% and 0.15±0.03% (ii) by ohmic hydro distillation (OHD): 0.5±0.02%, 0.7±0.05% and 0.3±0.01%, respectively. The research highlighted the OHD extraction method best one as it offers higher (p<0.05) amount of oil and saves time, cost and energy as compared to CHD.