ExtractionandCharacterizationofEssentialOilFromMoringaSeed

Abstract

This thesis was targeted to extract an Essential Oil form Moringa Seed using solvent extraction method, to study effect of extraction process and characterizing physio-chemical property of extracted oil. In this thesis, the effect of particle size, extraction time and solvent to solute ratio of solvent on extraction of Moringa Seeds in solvent extraction process was studied. The extraction of essential oil was conducted by using n-hexane as solvent and soxhelet extractor. The physio- chemical property of moringa seed and extracted essential oil was assessed.And the value of moisture content, ash, density, PH, acid value, ester and saponification value were 8%%, 5.3%, 0.7668g/ml,7 ±0.5, 2.242mgNaOH/g,180.08Mg NaOH/g and 182.235mgNaOH/g respectively. Generally, the yield of oil increases from two-hour to four-hour with a maximum yield of 46 %(w/w) at medium particle size and minimum yield of 17 %(w/w) at coarse particle size(2-1)mm. Therefore, from this study, it is possible to generalize; the maximum extraction of essential oil was obtained at medium particle size(1-0.5)mm.