Extraction of the essential oil from Aquilaria Malaccensis (gaharu) using hydrodistillation

Abstract

Aquil aria malaccensis or also known as Gaharu or Agarwood is one of the 23 species from Indo-Malaysian genus Aquilaria, class Magnoliopsia and family Thymeleceae. Aqularia malaccensis is a tall, ever-green, fragrant, resin-impregnated tree that commonly found in mixed hardwood hill forests across the tropical Southeast Asia and Asia such as Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines, Laos, Myanmar, India, Bangladesh, Bhutan and Iran. It is known as the most precious trees in the world and natural resources that have the highest price existing today. This is due to the facts that it is famous©This item is protecte for resinous, fragrant e dssential oil and highly valuable by original copyright non-timber tree in Asian tropical forest. This study is to study the effect of pretreatment of Aquilaria malaccensis (soaking process) to the pH profile, to extract the Aquilaria malaccensis essential oil by using hydrodistillation and solvent extraction and to characterise the physico-chemical properties of essential oil from Aquilaria malaccensis with an analytical technique (FTIR). The results indicate that the pH readings are fluctuated throughout the soaking period (four weeks) due to the acidic and alkaline compounds were leached out from the plant sample into the soaking water. Both of the extraction processes (hydrodistillation and solvent extraction) were unable to retrieve any Aquilaria malaccensis essential oil. This is due to several parameters such as the soaking period, the solid to solvent ratio, the sample size and the extraction duration.