Evaluation of the extraction process of the essential oil from Cymbopogon schoenanthus with pressurized carbon dioxide

The objective of this work was to study the essential oil extraction process of Cymbopogon schoenanthus Spreg with pressured CO2, and to compare the results with a conventional extraction process. The experiment was conducted at 15°C, 66.7 bar and a medium flow rate of 1.23 g CO2/min, in a fixed bed extractor and a dynamic method was adopted for the solubility calculation. The solvent extraction was realized with ethanol in an incubator, followed by a vacuum filtration and solvent evaporation. The composition of the oil was analyzed by a gas chromatography connected to a mass spectrometer. The extraction with CO2 showed a yield of 2.78 percent, and solubility of 1.48 x 10-2 g oil/ g CO2.