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Abstract
The conventional extraction process for agarwood oil has low efficiency. This work was aimed
to develop extraction process of agarwood oil with high efficiency. The optimum condition was
investigated. The components of extracted oil were also studied. The distillation unit consists of 30-L
stainless steel distort with 120-cm long steam pipe in 90-L cooling tower and two 20-L acrylic separators.
Agarwood was cut into pieces and powdered before soaked in water for 7 days. The distillation
unit was fed with 3 kilograms of agarwood and 27 liters of water. The extraction was carried out for 88 – 96
hours. The oil was collected from the separator and then water evaporated by rotary vacuum evaporator.
The amount of oil was determined every 8 hours. The oil components were investigated by gas
chromatography with mass spectrometry (GC-MS). Agarwood oil is dark brown color with density
of 920 g/L. With water distillation about 0.43 g of oil was yielded in 8 hours. The oil yield increased
from 8 to 48 hours with greatest yield of 0.71 g at 48 hours. With longer extraction time the amount
of oil decreased. The overall yield of agarwood oil for extraction time of 96 hours was about
0.23%. This yield is higher than the conventional water distillation process, which yields only
0.12% for operating time of 168 hours. With steam distillation, higher extraction rate of agarwood
oil was gain. The main components of extracted oil were 10 epi-gamma-eudesmol and agarospirol.
Keywords :
extraction, agarwood oil, Aquilaria
