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COMPARATIVE EVALUATION OF LEMONGRASS ESSENTIAL

OILS EXTRACTED BY FOUR DISTILLATION METHODS


Y. A. Asiedu,1 E. M. Cukrowska 1 and D. Hildebrandt 2
1

School of chemistry, 2Centre of Material and Process Synthesis (COMPS), University of the Witwatersrand, P.Bag 3 WITS
2050 Johannesburg, South Africa

INTRODUCTION
Essential oils are chemical products formed by odoriferous essences extracted from plants. They are widely applied in food, cosmetic and pharmaceutical
products and in recent times there is increasing acceptance and high demand for these valuable volatile extracts. Steam distillation is a simple and
relatively efficient technique that is widely used to extract essential oils. However due to high demand, there is the need to explore ways of improving the
yield and quality of essential oil extracted by the distillation method. Four water based extractants, two of which have modified polarities by salt and
vinegar addition, were used to extract lemongrass essential oils by the distillation method and the oils were compared in terms of yield, chemical
composition and antibacterial activity. Lemongrass (Cymbopogon citratus) is a tufted perenial grass which is indigenous to tropical and semi-tropical
areas of Asia and can also be found in central America, Africa and other tropical areas. The plant contains about 0.4 % essential oil (EO),(Leung, 1980),
which contain citral (isomeric mixture of neral(1) and geranial(2)), limonene(3), citronellal(4), myrcene(5) and geraniol(6) as marker components.
Five replicate samples of lemongrass sample Compounds identified by GC-MS analysis of the oils
extracted using (a) hydrodistillation (HD); (b) extracted by the four distillation methods and their %
steamdistillation (SD); (c) steam distillation compositions in the oils are shown in table 2.
with the addition of salt (NaCl) to modify the
Table 2. Some identified components in the oils
polarity of the extractant (SSD); and (d) steam
SD SSD
VD HD
Component
distillation in which five % by volume of
vinegar to water was used in order to modify
2-Heptanone
0.35
0.39 0.15 0.28
the pH and therefore the hydrophobicity of the
extractant (VD). The mean % yield for the for
Myrcene
7.68
7.48 7.66 8.87
the 4 methods in Table 1 shows the highest
1-Methyl-2-propenyl
0.72
0.84 0.52 0.89
yield by the HD method and the least yield by
the SD method.
1,8-Cineole
0.37
0.39 0.48 0.41

Figure 1. Marker components in lemongrass EO

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION


Optimization of extraction time
100g samples extracted for 6 hours with GCFID analysis of the extracts at 20 minutes time
intervals gave the highest amount of 4 marker
components at 60minute.Optimum extraction
time for the 100g samples were therefore
determined to be 60 minutes as indicated in
Figure 2.

Peak Area agains t e xtraction tim e


5000
4000
neral
3000
geraniol
peak2000
area/pA
geranial
1000
myrcene
0
0 100 200 300 400

Mean

Method

Deviation

Yield

SD

0.17 0.02

SSD

0.27 0.02

VD

0.25 0.01

HD

Standard

0.29 0.01

ANTIBACTERIA ACTIVITIES
The oils inhibited the growth of e.coli bacteria
with the SSD oil exhibiting the biggest
inhibition zone and the HD oil showed the
smallest zone. This may be due to the high
citral content in the SSD oil and the converse
in the HD oil. Citral has been reported to be the
major bioactive component in lemongrass EO
(de Bona da Silva et al., 2008).

Spiro-4,5-decane

0.22

0.19

0.19

0.16

4,5-Heptadiene

0.12

0.12

0.08

0.11

Citronellal

0.96

0.91

0.72

0.82

Cyclohexene

0.02

0.02

0.02

0.02

Geranyl acetate

0.03

0.03

0.01

0.01

Citral

76.74 79.15 76.66 64.61

Geraniol

5.35

5.74

5.71

6.61

Geranyl tiglate

0.73

1.31

0.24

0.46

1-pentadecane

0.10

0.18

0.06

0.18

Citronellyl butyrate

0.22

0.34

0.28

0.26

100
80

[
m
g
]

Table1. Mean % yield for the four methods


Distillation

60

Myrcene
Citral
Geranio
l

40

tim e /m in
20

Figure 2. Extraction time optimization plot

SSD oil

VD oil

SD

S SD

VD

HD

Figure 3. Chart of active compounds

Chromatogram of lemongrass EO
SD oil

HD oil

Milligrams of some active components in the


oils extracted from 100g samples using the four
methods were determined. HD gave more oil,
hence the overall active compounds extracted
was more than the other methods.

CONCLUSION

The results of this research suggest that efficiency and effectiveness of the steam distillation process can be improved
by simple methods such as adding salt or vinegar to the extractant.
The study also revealed that the antibacterial properties of the oil may be improved significantly by the use of these
modified
extractants
in the extraction process.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
: This work was supported by the National Research Foundation South Africa and the Centre Of Material and Process
Synthesis (COMPS)
REFERENCES
de Bona da Silva, C., Guterres, S. S., Weisheimer, V., Schapoval, E. E. S. (2008) Antifungal Activity of the lemongrass oil and citral against Candida
spp. The Brazillian Journal of Infectious Diseases. 12 (1): 63-66.
Lueng, A. Encyclopedia of Common Natural Ingredients Used in Foods, Drugs and Cosmetic (1980). New York, NY: J Wiley and Sons.

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