Yield and Composition Analysis of Vietnamese Lemon (Citrus aurantifolia) Essential Oils Obtained from Hydrodistillation and Microwave-assisted Hydrodistillation

In this study, the essential oils from lemon (Citrus aurantifolia) peels were extracted using hydrodistillation and microwave-assisted hydrodistillation and their volatile compositions were compared via gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) analysis. Microwave-assisted hydrodistillation (MHD) achieved the oil yield of 2.48% at microwave power of 470W and extraction time of 60 min. The yield obtained using conventional hydrodistillation (HD) was 2.2% at 90 min at 120 degrees C. GC-MS analysis revealed a total of 17 and 8 components existing in the oil samples produced by MHD and HD methods respectively. The main components shared by both samples were limonene, alpha-pinene, beta-pinene, beta-cymene, ocimene, and sabinene. Overall, these results suggest that MHD could produce lemon (Citrus aurantifolia) peels essential oil at a higher yield within a shortened period of time as compared to the traditional HD, thus it could be used as an alternative for HD to reduce costs of the extraction process.