Essential oil from extraction and steam distillation of Ocimum Basillicum

Indonesia is one of the essential oil producers in the world. Ocimum Basillicum can be easily found in Indonesia, nevertheless the production of essential oil from this plant has not been explored widely, and therefore the aim of the research is to find the optimum condition for extraction of Ocimum Basillicum with two solvents, Le. ethanol and n Hexane. In this study, the steam distillation was also applied to Ocimum Basillicum. Two grams of air dried Ocimum Basillicum leaves and steins and 400 mL of solvent were placed in the extraction flask, equipped with stirrer and waterbath to control the temperature. Samples (I mL) were taken every 5 minutes, until the equilibrium was reached. Concentration of essential oil in the solvent was determined by using UV-visible spectrophotometer. The same procedure was run for three different temperatures: 33 degrees C, 45 degrees C and 55 degrees C. Two different solvents: n Hexane and ethanol were used in the experiment. From the GCMS analysis showed that leaves and mixture of leaves and steins gave the same compounds in the essential oil produced, but the mixture of leaves and stems gave a better product in terms of appearance although leaves gave higher yield The higher the extraction temperature, the better the extraction process was. N Hexane was a better solvent for extraction of Ocimum Basillicum than ethanol, not only in terms of equilibrium but also in term of kinetics. The mass transfer coefficient was evaluated by fitting the experimental concentration profile to the unsteady state mass balance equation, followed the dimensionless equation: Sh = 0.225 Sc-0.3 Re-0.6 The average relative errors were 2%. From a 300 g of Ocimum Basillicum leaves and stems, 1. 9 gof essential oil was produced using steam distillation compared to 4 g of oil produced from solvent extraction.