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Abstract
This paper is aimed to investigate the application of Pulsed Electric Field (PEF) as a pretreatment step for the intensification of the essential oil extraction yield of Marrubium vulgar that is a local plant from Mascara, Algeria. PEF has been applied for this purpose to improve the permeabilization by electroporation of the biological membranes. The PEF treatment was optimized by using the experiments design methodology, by considering as input factors the voltage level, the pulses number and the distillation process duration. Obtained results have shown that (i) the electrical conductivity of the sample increases due to the enhancement of the mass transfer (ii) the extraction process is significantly improved because the amount of the PEF-treated essential oil has increased up to three times. Moreover, physicochemical analysis of the essential oil carried out before and after treatment has shown that almost all parameters were identified and recovered after treatment.