Abstract:
Microwave-assisted hydrodistillation was developed based on Clevenger-hydrodistillation technique which used microwave as a source of energy in its refining process of essential oil. The purpose of this research was to compare these two distillation methods for isolating the oil from the leaves of Ocimum tenuiflorum L. The results showed that microwave method gave better results compare to those of Clevenger in terms of duration of process as well as product. Microwave-assisted hydrodistillation method took shorter time, 1.5 hours, whereas Clevenger-hydrodistillation took much longer, 6 hours. The essential oil composition was determined by GC-MS. The main compound of essential oil of Ocimum tenuiflorum L leaves was eugenol, 25.71% and 41.75% with Clevenger-hydrodistillation and microwave-assisted hydrodistillation techniques respectively. Antimicrobial test against Escherichia coli showed that essential oil of Clevenger-hydrodistillation was more active than those of microwave-assisted hydrodistillation. Antioxidant activity using DPPH assay of the essential oil of microwave-assisted hydrodistillation was more active, with IC50 39.52 than those of Clevenger-hydrodistillation, with IC50 51.06 . Therefore, the microwave-assisted hydrodistillation method was considered to be environmentally friendly technology.
