Patchouli accumulatea an essential oil on its leaves, and it is mainly used by the perfume industry. The purpose of this work was to determine the distillation time for the extraction of essential oils from the leaves of patchouli. The treatments included 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8 hours of extraction through the hydrodistillation method, using a Clevenger apparatus. The experimental design was completely randomized with three replications. The leaves were dried at room temperature until they reached 20% of humidity. The essential oil yield was measured from samples containing 50g of leaf dry mass. The essential oil production and composition were evaluated. No differences among the treatments were found on the essential oil yield, suggesting that the essential oil extraction can be carried out for 1 hour according to the experimental conditions. However, extending the extraction time, an increase in the relative percentage of beta-patchoulene (1.26%), cariofilene (2.44%), gamma-patchoulene (4.82%), alpha-patchoulene (3.08%), beta-guaiene (0.81%) and alpha-selinene (1.37%) was observed. The pogostol (5.11%) content was reduced with the increase of the extraction time. Patchoulol, alpha-guaieno, alpha-bulneseno and seicheleno contents were not affected by the evaluated extraction times.
Pogostemon cablin; hydrodestillation; patchoulol
