Extraction and Characterization of Essential oil from basil leaves

Abstract

Essential oils are highly concentrated substances extracted from flowers, leaves stems, roots, seeds, barks, resins or fruit rinds. Basil (Ocimum basillicum L.) is an erect herbaceous annual aromatic, spice and medicinal plant that belong to the Lamiaceae family. Principally, the project aims at extracting essential oil from basil leaves by solvent extraction technology. Experiments were carried out to extract the oil from basil leaves. Samples of 1500g was taken and treated by passing through washing, drying, grinding, extraction, and separation. The effects of particle size at(≤0.5,≤1,≤2)mm volume of solvent (150ml,160ml,200ml)and extracting time (3hr,4hr,5hr) were studied. At particle size ( ), at volume of solvent (160ml, oil yield was 13.8%) and extraction time (4hr, oil yield was 16.667%) were the optimum values for these parameters. Besides, the characterization on physical and chemical properties of the essential oil was performed. The moisture content of the fresh basil leaves after 2 full sunny drying days was found as 76.47%. The percentage yield of extracted product at optimum parameters was determined 17 % by weight. Besides, its density and specific gravity was found to be 0.7089 g/ml and 0.7110 respectively. The project is financially feasible with Rate of Return (ROR) 38.82% and payback period of 2 years. The project will generate $152,065.00 in terms of tax revenue