Microvawe-Assisted Distillation Kinetics and Chemical Composition of Ginger Oil

Rhizomes of ginger (Zingiber officinalis L.) are widely used ingredients in food technology, pharmaceutical and cosmetics industries. The characteristic aroma and taste of ginger as well as medicinal effect is attributed to essential oils and oleorezins. In this work, the microwave distillation kinetics, yield and composition of the essential oil obtained at different dry plant material-to-water ratios (1:10, 1:15 and 1:20) and microwave powers (350W, 450W and 600W) were examined. The oil yield strongly depend on the dry plant material-to-water ratio and the applied microwave power. Oil yield is increasing with increasing applied microwave power and lowering dry plant material-to-water ratio. The highest oil yield (1.23 mL/kg) was achieved at dry plant material-to-water ratio of 1:20 and microwave power of 600W. The essential oil composition was identified using GC-MS techniques. There are no significant differences in the chemical composition of the oils obtained at different microwave distillation conditions.

Acknowledgement: This work was supported under the projects OI 172047 by the Ministry of Science and Technological Development Republic of Serbia.