Abstract
An ultrasonic enhanced salt‐containing hydrodistillation (UESHD) method for separating essential oil from lavender (Lavandula angustifolia) flowers was investigated using response surface methodology (RSM). The experimental data obtained from a 27‐run experiment were fitted to a second‐order polynomial equation. The optimal conditions were determined by the 3D response surface and the contour plots derived from the models. The efficiency of UESHD and conventional hydrodistillation (HD) was compared. The extraction yield of UESHD was two‐fold higher than that of HD. In addition, GC‐MS results indicated some differences in composition and content between the two essential oils from UESHD and HD.
An ultrasonic enhanced salt‐containing hydro‐distillation (UESHD) method was developed to separate lavender essential oil. The extraction yield of the oil was optimized by statistical software, the separation conditions by the Box‐Behnken design. UESHD enabled a more than two‐fold yield of essential oil than conventional hydrodistillation.
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