Comparison of pennyroyal oils obtained by supercritical CO2 extraction and hydrodistillation

✍ Scribed by E. M. C. Reis-Vasco; J. A. P. Coelho; A. M. F. Palavra

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1999
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 223 KB
• Volume: 14
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0882-5734
• DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1099-1026(199905/06)14:3<156::aid-ffj793>3.0.co;2-j

✦ Synopsis

Flowers and leaves of pennyroyal (Mentha pulegium L.) were extracted using supercritical CO 2 followed by a two-stage fractional separation technique. Using a ¯ow apparatus with an extraction vessel (1 l) and two separators (0.27 l), the best conditions of extraction (P 100 bar and T 508C) and of separation (P 80 bar, T À168C for the ®rst separator and P 18 bar, T 08C for the second) were found and used to investigate the eect of dierent mean particle diameters. The pennyroyal oil obtained under these conditions was compared with that obtained by hydrodistillation. Twenty-one components were identi®ed by GC±MS and quanti®ed by GC. Both the hydrodistillation and supercritical oils of Mentha pulegium L. contain the oxygenated monoterpenes pulegone (% 80%) and menthone (% 9%) as the main components. The aroma of the pennyroyal oil obtained with supercritical CO 2 was closer to that of the starting vegetable material than the aroma of the essential oil produced by hydrodistillation.