Kinetic Modeling of Hydrodistillation of Essential Oil Production from Orange (Citrus sinensis) Peels on Pilot Scale

Present study involves to the pilot scale hydrodistillation process for production of essential oil of orange peels. The production of orange peels essential oil and the effect of several factors such as time, temperature and the ratio of solid/solvent on yield and quality were studied. In this work, we used fresh orange peels of C. sinensis (orange). The quantitative and qualitative analyses of the essential oils of orange peels were performed by GC/MS and sensory analysis. The maximum yield of orange peels essential oil was 1.2384 % (fresh matter) at distillation conditions (ground fresh material, the material-water ratio of 1:2, time of 105 min from the first drop, the temperature of 132 ºC). Kinetic studies of hydrodistillation process showed that the extraction of orange peels essential oil follows first order kinetic (R2 > 0.95). Limonene is the dominant component of the orange peels essential oil that was identified by chromatography-mass spectrometry (94.22 %). The results of test indicated the orange peels essential oil has good qualities which were suitable to the National Standards of Vietnam.