Effect of Pressure on Essential Oil Yield of Chromolaena Odorata Leaves Extract using Supercritical Fluid Carbon Dioxide

Abstract

Most of the previous researchers used conventional extraction technique such as steam distillation and solvent extraction method in Chromolaena Odorata extraction. Therefore, in this study a clean extraction method that is Supercritical Fluid Extraction (SFE) technology using supercritical carbon dioxide as a solvent (SC-CO2) was introduced for Chromolaena Odorata leaves extraction to produce oil of bioactive components. The objective of this research was to find the optimum pressure for the highest oil yield extracted. The extraction was conducted within a range of temperature (40, 45 and 50°C) and pressure (3000, 3500, 4000, 4500 and 5000psi), at a constant flowrate (24 ml/min) for 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 and 60 minutes of extraction time. From the studies, it was found that extraction pressure is an important factor that can affect the extraction yield where the oil yield increased as the pressure increased due to the increasing amount of CO2 consumed where it boost the density of the solvent to interact with the solute. The highest oil yield is 51.20% at pressure of 4000psi and temperature 50°C. Whereas at the highest pressure of 5000psi, the oil yield is the lowest. This shows that the extraction is not suitable at pressure 5000psi.