I think that the best and the fastest way to obtain a high quality essential oil from fresh fruits is to use microwave assisted hydrodistillation. Search "essential oil microwave extraction" in Google. You do not have to put any water in the reactor, it's the water contained in the fruit that will act as vehicle for essential oil extraction in only a few minutes. If you don't have the equipment, I think that you will have to freeze dry them (especially if they are big), to ground them and to extract them by classical hydrodistillation. You can also exctract volatile and apolar compounds on dried fruits using hexane or dicholoromethane (or a mix) or, if you have the equipment by supercritical CO2

Depends on the type of fruit: if citrus, pressing of the peel is the method of choice, in any other case: mixing (with water) and hydrodistillation - or extraction with solvents: but the result is an extract, not an essential oil!

Its may be hydrodistillation using clavenger apparatus.....

From my experince other than citrus fruits other fruits are concern amount of total volatile are called flavour of corosponding fruit , there is a special arrangement of glassware disigned by Nikalson & Nicklason by their name for the extraction of fruit flavours , for experimental laboratory use you could use ths glassware for the extraction as amount of flavour is very little I have not seen any industrial application of this apparatus or its principal . However for the analysis of flavour compounds there are many publications based on above method, if your interest is for the analysis of flavour recomended medthod is above , you could get the details of extarction by referance from above method.

K R Dayananda

Thank´s for all.

I think that if you want to evaluate the aroma of fresh fruit you shouldn't focus only on distillation techniques. Depending on your sample (dried or fresh), you could use a head space technique (e.g. Solid Phase Micro Extraction) and simulate the aroma perception of human nose. I have used the same technique in watermelon fruit and there is relevant literatute.

Where is the aroma of the fruit? Peel or pulp? The Clevenger equipment is the method most common and accepted by pharmaceutic area. But, it's valid when the aroma is in leaves, flowers or peels. In other cases, it's better to use the extraction for solvents (Soxhlet). I think that you need to explain us your case in detail.

Dear Dr Cerpa

We don´t know about aroma of the fruit. They are fruits of the Cerrado (Brazillian Savanna), they are edible fruits, delicate and the texture of the pulp resembles peaches. We would like extract the essential oil by clevenger apparatus but I don´t know if better method. We have Clevenger apparatus and characterization would be done in CG/MS.

Thank´s for help me.

Dear Rozilaine,

It is well known that hydrodistillation can't recover all the aroma compounds. The best example is fragrance from Jasmine. Commercially, it is extracted by hexane. Therefore, it depends on what type of the chemical constituents you are interested in. If you can extract the raw material with various types of extraction techniques, you will get large variation in chemical composition of the extracts. Every method has its own merits and demerits. Since you don't know much about the aroma, I suggest that you try all possible methods of extractions and you will get to know the difference in the chemical composition.

You can utilize the could compression method, currently used for essential oil extraction from citric fruits, preserving your material for futher analisys and aplications. Hydrodestilation is an obsolete method that results in low yield and loss of unstable aromatic compounds. Another good technique for extracting is the eufleorage, a bit more delicate technique but preserves most compounds in the final oil. The use of solvents is also recommended to further purification.

i think the easiest way to get the essential oil is to use hydrodistillation using the Clevenger apparatus

A new process of essential oil extraction from citric fruit has been patented last year, it's a cold method and which consists of taking out only the essential oil and preserving the fruit in its full size. The oil obtained is 100% pure.

At first you have to know what compound do you want to extract?

Dear Mr Farhang

we don´t know the extract. I would like to know them and try another techniques. But we have just hydrodestillation with Clevenger apparatus.

You need to pay attention to the temperature and the time of Clevenger method, However does not require for simple task. Temperature of 40 degrees is enough. But there's a lot of methods for extracting such as Maceration, Percolation, Soxhlet, Digestion, Boiling and etc. But miss Rozilaine you have to chose your goal at first.

Mr Farhang

I would like essential oil composition. I'm sorry, I guess I was not clear. I know that there is a lot methods to obtain the essential oil and I would like to know if hydrodestillatin method is adequate enough for me to know or have an idea of the composition of the oil, as it has never been studied.

If I get it true. Miss Faria if you want to know that what compositions are in essential oil you have to use Clevenger for extract essential oil and after that use from HPLC, Gc/Mass and some methods for analyze.

Thank you very much!!

You're welcome

Mr. ali farhang,

essential oil cannot be isolated effectively by maceration, soxlet apparatua etc..... bcz, the essential contain mono and sesqui terpanoids as major composition (which are responsible for fragrance )and is volatile in nature. So in maceration, most of the compounds may get escape during isolation itself.

hydrodistillation using clevanger apparatus is the best method to isolate essential oil where oil is collected over water. In GC-ms, the compounds are identified based on their rf values and molecular mass.

Hydro-distillation is the best method to isolate essential oil.Oil is collected over water.If u do' t see any traces of oil, then add some pure hexane and a small amount of table salt to water and shake it vigorously in a separating funnel. Separate the upper organic layer of hexane and remove the solvent hexane either through rotary or open air at low temperature. Then try it for GC/MS to identify and quantify its composition.

In case of fresh fruit .You need to extract fresh juice for oil extraction, from dried fruit you cannot do that because they would have lost most of its component during their drying period.

I know Dear Ms. Mangai sa, Pay attention to all of my answers, please.

Mr.Ali Farhang,

ya , i read ur ans.

There are various essential oils extraction methods. these methods are used according to the chemical composition nature of essential oils. Totally, the best method of extraction is steam-distillation. the hydrocarbons compounds are isolated in the beginning of the extraction then, the oxygenated compounds (which are almost soluble in water). All chemical compounds are almost extracted by this method after the time of extraction is done.

In addition, fresh cut fruits i think it needed to be extracted by mixing of two solvents according to the nature of essential oils founded in the kind of fruit (from review). this technique is used in the extraction of flavor compounds especially, the amount of the essential oils in the fruits is lower than other plant parts

Thank you, Mr Abdelaleem.

You are welcome

Hydrodistillation using a Clavenger's apparatus is the best method. You can try other methods as suggested by previous answers. But former is well tested and it is sure to get the product with this method in ample amount also. As far as GC MS is concerned, you can identify the constituents of the oil using GC-MS according to their molecular masses.

Dehydrating the fruits can help better extraction but you have to be very careful as temperature here will be a major concern. It should not destroy your oil components at all. Give a try, you can get better results, after dehydrating the sample.

Gud Luck and regards

Hydrodistillation methodis the best method that u not need any solvent for extraction and u can use the oil as it is, for any further analysis. See my different research paper about essentila oil

It is best to identify the aroma of a fruit using SPME and GC-MS. With hidrodestilación many components are destroyed or solubilized in water, such as aldehydes and esters of low molecular weight. An example is the difference in the aroma of the essential oils obtained by hydro-distillation or cold expression of citrus peels.

Yes Doctor, SPME, NIRS and GC-MS or HPLC is good for assessment when I want to know, what are the components of compound? ,but in this discussion we want a best method for extraction and I said it's depend on your goal

Its depend upon type of the fruits. However the best method is Steam-distillation or Solvent extraction.

Ok, thanks everyone.

I would like to suggest a method. First freeze the materials until frozen for a few hours or even a day. Then extract with steam distillation. The idea of freezing the fruits is to break up all the cells so that when we distill the materials, all the essential oils are out of the cells and will easily volatilise into the steam.

If you need a "real" essential oil you need to obtain it according to its definition given by AFNOR:-ISO, that is an hydrophobic mixture obtained by hydrodistillation or mechanical expression (the latter case for Citrus)

The method is suitable for the extraction of the oil from your sample but is not the best technique because of the following drawbacks:( I) Thermolabile constituents of the oil are prone to degradation.( ii) Hydrophillic constituents of the oil are prone to dissolution.( iii) The constituents are equally susceptible to hydrolysis by water. Your sample doesn't require dehydration. The best technique is super critical fluid extraction. GC -MS is suitable for the characterization of the oil but in case some of the constituents are not identifiable, preparative GC can be use in conjunction with other spectroscopic techniques such as ir, uv, and nmr.

Hydrodistillation using the Clevenger extraction method is the best method for extraction of essential oil. You can use fresh fruits without any hesitation, but it will be better if you use juice of the fruits. You can easily identify the constituents of the oil using GC or GC-MS if you have library in your system.

We have these facilities in our labs.

If u need some help I can.

Thank you very much, mr Muhammad Afridi.....I have GC-MS and I will try to study some plants of Brazilian Savanna.

Regards

It is best to identify the aroma of a fruit using SPME and GC-MS