A kinetic study of essential oil components distillation for the recovery of carvacrol rich fractions

Publication date: May 2018Source: Journal of Applied Research on Medicinal and Aromatic Plants, Volume 9Author(s): Dimitrios Tsimogiannis, Vassiliki OreopoulouAbstractThe distillation kinetics of the different essential oil components from four Lamiaceae herbs was investigated. Origanum vulgare L. ssp. hirtum, Origanum onites L., Origanum dictamnus L., and Satureja thymbra L. (harvests of 2013–2015), that present similar composition of essential oil were distilled in a laboratory-scale steam distiller. The recovery of the essential oil (EO) and its components was adequately described by non-steady state diffusion kinetics. The results clearly evidenced that the components present different distillation rates, thus resulting in variation of the EO composition during the process. The distillation rate constants decreased with the increase of the individual components boiling points, therefore, the heavy volatiles, such as carvacrol, could be recovered separately after the distillation of the most volatile compounds. This hypothesis was experimentally confirmed for O. vulgare and S. thymbra; the separate fractions were obtained from 40 and 50 min respectively up to the end of distillations. GC–MS analyses of the fractions revealed very high carvacrol content that amounted up to 92.5% for O. vulgare. The procedure could be applicable in industrial practice in order to recover fractions with pre-designed quality characteristics.Graphical abstract
Source: Journal of Applied Research on Medicinal and Aromatic Plants - Category: Complementary Medicine Source Type: research