The Research on Supercritical CO2 Extraction of Essential Oil from the Flower of Chamomile
Abstract: The essential oil from the flower of chamomile was extracted with supercritical CO2. Influences of extraction pressure, temperature, extraction time and separation conditions on the yield and the quality of extractive were investigated. The yield of extractive was 3.74 % at appropriate conditions of pressure 20MPa , temperature 50 ℃and extraction time 2.0 h .At this extraction conditions, the yield of essential oil was 0.16% while the three step separation was used to optimize the separation of essential oil from unwanted components. The results of supercritical CO2 extraction experiments were compared with those obtained with steam distillation and maceration. The obtained essential oil were analysed by GC. It can be concluded, that SFE offers considerable advantages over the conventional method of steam distillation and maceration for separation of essential oil compounds from chamomile. The technology of molecular distillation of concretes from chamomile were also studied.. The results showed that the appropriate refining conditions were determined as distillation temperature 120℃,pressure 3. 0 Pa and scratch speed 350 r/ min. Yield of refined chamomile essential oil reached 7.26 %.
Keywords:Chamomile; essential oil; supercritical CO2 extraction; molecular distillation