Experiment 6:

Extraction of Essential Oil from Lemon Peel

Conducted by: Life Science’18

1. Richard Lee (11201802003)

2. Andy E. Daniswara (11201602002)
3. Jihan Angrila (11201802014)

Lecturer : Lucia Kusumawati. S.Si, M.Sc, Ph.D.

Date of Experiment : 4th November, 2019

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Table of Contents

1. Abstract ……………………………….….………………..3
2. Objectives………………....…………....…………………..4
3. Introduction……………………………….……….………4
4. Method………………………………….…..…………..…..4

4.1. Apparatus……………………….…..………......…..4

4.2. Procedure……………………………..….…...…….5

5. Result and Discussion ……….…………………….……….5

6. Conclusion…………………………………...……...………6
7. References………………………………......…...………….7

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1. Abstract

The purpose of this experiment is to understand the process and extract essential oil from the
peels of lemonade by using distillation apparatus. 150.2932g of grinded lemon peel and 300mL
of water are used, heated for more or less an hour and the result is a mixture of the water and
its essential oil. To get the essential oil, 20mL of n-hexane is used. The essential oil resulted in
this experiment is 1.4131g with the yield is 0.94%

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2. Objectives

• To understand the procedure of extracting lemon essential oil through its peel.

• To extract lemon essential oil.

3. Introduction

Essential oil, also known as volatile oils (or oil ethereal), are concentrated hydrophobic liquids
that contain aromatic volatiles compound. It is commonly used in perfumes, cosmetics, soaps,
food and beverages, and much more. Common essential oils are lavender, mint, eucalyptus,
but many more plants can have essential oil extracted from them. Common method of essential
oil extraction is through distillation. The raw plant material is soaked in water and then put in
a distillation process. When the water is evaporated into steam, it passes through the plant
material which will evaporate the volatile compounds. When the steam passes through a
coil/condenser, the mixture of oil and water will flow into the container reservoir. Most
essential oil distillation process happens once.

Most of the time, plants contain very small amount of essential oil. In lemon, the essential oil
is obtained from its peel. 90% of lemon essential oil is made of d-limonene, a compound that
can also be found in oranges, limes, mandarins, and grapefruit. It gives lemons its distinct
lemon aroma and is used in perfume industry, cleaning product, and many more. Limonene is
a colourless liquid hydrocarbon compound that’s a chiral. It also belongs to the terpene group,
is stable, and can be distilled without undergoing decomposition. However, at higher
temperature, it can be cracked into isoprene.

4. Method

4.1. Apparatus

• Lemon peel (150g, grated) • Heating mantle

• N-hexane (20mL) • Thermometer
• Distilled water (300mL) • Separating funnel
• Balance • Beaker glass
• Distillation apparatus • Grater (preferably not cheese)

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 4.2. Procedure

1. Grate enough lemon skin to obtain 150g of it. Make sure only the yellow part if mostly
grated.
2. Put in distillation flask and add 300mL of distilled water.
3. Assemble the distillation apparatus and run the distillation process until the temperature
rises rapidly. MAKE SURE the cooler’s temperature does not rise beyond 35°C and it
does not dry out.
4. Collect distillate.
5. Add 20mL of n-hexane and shake gently.
6. Separate oil and water phase using separating funnel.
7. Transfer the oil into another container and leave in fume hood for the n-hexane to
evaporate.
8. Weigh obtained oils.

5. Result and Discussion

The experiment was started with a 150.2932g of lemon peel (lemon skin) and 300mL of
distilled water. Both lemon peels and water are then transferred into reflux flask which then
was heated up with a heating mantle at maximum heat output until all water is evaporated.
When the reflux flask was heated, the water in the flask gets to a boil then an emulsion will
start to form since the oils will start to boil also. Both oil and water evaporated and went through
a cooling tube as a result it comes back into a liquid form from gas form.

Pic.1. Distillation apparatus set up.

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After an hour or more of heating, all of the water finally evaporates and most of the oil also
evaporated and was in the Erlenmeyer flask. To separate the oil from the water, there are 2
ways to do this. One is to carefully pipette the oil layer only. Second, pour n-hexane into the
mixture of water and lemon oil. The idea of using n-hexane is that n-hexane can easily dissolve
oil. In this experiment, conductor wants the best result so they used the second method which
is mixing 20mL of n-hexane into the Erlenmeyer flask to dissolve all of the essential oil then
pipette them to a small beaker glass (50mL). The beaker glass then was left in the vacuuming
machine to let the n-hexane evaporates for one day. As a result, 1.4131g of essential oil was
produced. So the yield of the oil is 0.94%.

Answering the question:

1. Calculate the final yield of essential oil that was obtained.
Lemon peel used: 150.2932g
Essential oil produced: 1.4131g
Yield: (1.4131g/150.2932g)×100% = 0.9402%

2. What is the role of n-hexane added?

The role of n-hexane added is to make it easier for separating between the water and
the mixture of oil and n-hexane. Because on the separatory funnel, the oil layer of the
mixture is hardly seen. Since n-hexane and oil will dissolve easily, then by adding the
n-hexane, the layer between water and a mixture of n-hexane and oil can be easily seen
and it much easier to separate the water on the separatory funnel. Then let the n-hexane
evaporate on fume hood, the essential oil is easy to get.

3. Suggest a better method to obtain optimum yield of lemon essential oil. Explain
how optimum yield is obtained and give reference(s).
Steam explosion.
By using steam explosion method dry lemon peel are subject to a high pressure for a
few seconds to two minutes a max to prevent it from burning. Then pressure is drop
abruptly to make sure that the oil will go through a pipe. The oil comes out from the
peel due to high pressure from the vacuum sucking out the air from the media, but still
prevents the peel from burning up instead. The oil comes out in the form of emulsion.

Reference:
Golmohammadi, M., Borghei, A., Zenouzi, A., Ashrafi, N. and Taherzadeh, M.
(2018). Optimization of essential oil extraction from orange peels using steam
explosion. Heliyon, 4(11), p.e00893.

6. Conclusion

Based on this experiment, 1.4131g of essential oil was obtained from 150.2932g which gives a
yield of 09402%. Distillation process was used to obtain the oil and water mixture from the
grated lemon peel and 20mL n-hexane was used to separate the oil and water in the separating
funnel. The n-hexane was then evaporated.

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Something that could’ve been done to increase the yield was perhaps grinding the lemon peel
to very fine to allow more oil to be ‘carried’ with the water. Another would be like stated above,
by using steam explosion method.

7. References

• Ld-didactic.de. (2019). [online] Available at: https://www.ld-

didactic.de/documents/en-US/EXP/C/C3/C3331_e.pdf [Accessed 26 Oct. 2019]

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