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ABSTRACT
Citrus essential oil has many uses in food, cosmetics, and pharmaceuticals industries, especially the minor compounds present in the oil. This work aimed to evaluate the distillation patterns of the components of the peel essential oil of Citrus sinensis using vacuum fractional distillation. The performed tests show that the separation of the compounds occurs with the leaving of the lighter terpenes, followed by the heavier terpenes and part of the oxygenated functions. Most of the oxygenated functions remained in the bottom of the column, being concentrated in this fraction. Many trace compounds were found in the bottom products. The limonene mass percentage reduced from 96.68% to 52.81% in the bottom products. Linalool had its mass percentage increased from 0.37% in the raw oil to 4.22% in the bottom. It was also observed in the operation conditions of the column (10 kPa and 70°C), there was no evidence of thermal degradation of the raw oil, neither of the obtained fractions during the process.
Acknowledgement
The authors thank EcoCitrus for providing the raw essential oil.
Funding
The authors thank the Secretariat of Science and Technological Innovation of the state of Rio Grande do Sul for the funding of the equipment and the incentive to the Project, both giving support to the performing of this research.
