Extraction of essential oil from lemongrass (Cymbopogon Citratus)

Lemongrass (Cymbopogon Citratus) essential oil is very popular due to scent, therapeutic ability and other advantages such as can be used as insect repellent and etc. The main objective of this study is to determine the effect of ultrasonic soaking to the yield and citral content of the extracted lemongrass essential oil by using hydrodstillation method. As the frequency of ultrasonic soaking is varied from 0 to 37 and 50 kHz, the yield of essential oil is increased up to 0.955%. Study on effect of ultrasonic soaking time from 0 to 45 minutes at 37 kHz showed that there is reducing of citral content after 10 minutes of soaking. The geranial content is reduced significantly while neral content seems did not changed much. It is best to extract lemongrass essential oil with ultrasonic soaking at 37 kHz for 10 minutes in order to maintain high yield as well as high citral content.