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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
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
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
]
60
Myrcene
Citral
Geranio
l
40
tim e /m in
20
SSD oil
VD oil
SD
S SD
VD
HD
Chromatogram of lemongrass EO
SD oil
HD oil
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.