Comparison of Three Different Extraction Methods on Osmanthus Volatile Oil: Aroma and Biological Activity

The osmanthus volatile oil was welcomed by consumers even if the high price since the unique and pleasant odor. Meanwhile, the low yield of osmanthus volatile oil restricts industrial production. In this work, an osmanthus volatile oil was obtained by means of a novel ultrasonic‐assisted flash extraction method and was compared with the oil from hydrodistillation and supercritical fluid extraction on yield, aroma, and biological activities. The volatile oil obtained from the ultrasonic‐assisted flash extraction was obtained with the petroleum ether and got a high yield at 3.51 % within a 40‐min process, an increase of nearly 81 % from the single solvent extraction. This oil also showed a high aroma intensity and aroma compound concentration. Meanwhile, the oil also has the highest antioxidant ability but lower antibacterial activity against oil from hydrodistillation. It was considered that this work was helpful for the optimization of the extraction method of osmanthus volatile oil.