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Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 195 (2015) 2443 – 2450

World Conference on Technology, Innovation and Entrepreneurship

Agarwood Oil Yield As A Result of Changes in Cell Morphology

Due To Soaking Process
Veronica Alexander Joka*, Nurhaslina Che Radzia, Ku Halim Ku Hamida
a
Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM) 40000 Shah Alam, Selangor, Malaysia

Abstract

This study emphasis on the hydration effects (by immersion technique) towards the morphology of agarwood chips. Agarwood
chips were obtained from the Aquilaria Malaccensis trunk. The effects of hydration also reflected by the oil yield extracted from
soaked agarwood chips. Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) analysis conducted to evaluate the microstructure of the agarwood
chips. The hydration effect was evaluated by varying the soaking time and it is analyzed by its moisture content. The resulting oil
yield was obtained from conventional water distillation process. The distillation time was standardized for 96 hours for all
samples. Agarwood oil collected and quantify at the end of the distillation process. The total oil yield at different soaking time
produces a bell-shaped graph ranging from 0, 7, 14, 21 and 28 days. The maximum oil yield can be obtained by agarwood chips
soaked for 14 days. The result can be explained by the morphology of agarwood chips cell. The cell has expanded and finally
damage, thus releasing the content to the soaking water. Water enters cell wall through diffusion and increase the turgor pressure.
Soaking water become more acidic through time and corrodes the cell wall. This enhances the wall damaging process. However,
longer soaking time causes more oil content wasted to the soaking water. It is concluded that the most suitable soaking time for
agarwood oil extraction is 14 days. On the other hand, soaking process able to changes the morphology of the agarwood chips in
order to enhance the oil yield.
© 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
© 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Peer-reviewunder
Peer-review under responsibility
responsibility of Istanbul
of Istanbul University.
Univeristy.

Keywords: agarwood, morphology, soaking process

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +6016-871 9020

E-mail address: veronica.alexjok@gmail.com

1877-0428 © 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Peer-review under responsibility of Istanbul Univeristy.
doi:10.1016/j.sbspro.2015.06.387
2444 Veronica Alexander Jok et al. / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 195 (2015) 2443 – 2450

1. Introduction

Agarwood oil has a long history in many ancient civilizations. It is reported that agarwood oil has been used as
medicine, incense, in religious practices and aromatherapy (Chen et al, 2011). Current studies often combine several
extraction techniques in order to enhance the current practice in the industry. Some studies focused on the
pretreatment of the raw material to increase the oil yield. Similarly, this work focused on the pre-treatment of the
raw material. In this work, the pre-treatment done by soaking (immersion technique) the agarwood chips into the
water. This study justifies a better understanding on the soaking mechanism process improves the agarwood oil
extraction yield. On the other hand, it is crucial to establish a proven scientific data on selecting the best condition
for agarwood chips soaked into water.

Pretreatment process in the extraction of essential oil is a crucial step. Previous study shows several methods to
pretreat plant sample before extraction such as soaking in water, chemical treatment, sonication, and microwaves
treatment (Segneanu et al, 2013). Previous study also discussed the optimize soaking time for different type of
Aquilaria sp.(Raina Verina, 2013). The samples were distillate in the lab for 8 hours. It was concluded that the
optimized time for soaking is 21 days. However, this does not represent the real industrial practice since the
agarwood chips do not finely grounded as in the previous study. Hence in this work, agarwood chips directly used in
the process after it were chipped into smaller pieces.

The oil glands in agarwood chips able to be open when soak with water. Hydration of the plant cell causes it to
expand and turgor pressure increases. As discussed by previous work, the acidity of the soaking water decreases
becomes more acidic (Bayram et al, 2004). Combination of turgor pressure and corrosion by acidic environment
may cause the additional damage to the cell. Therefore, this enable plant cells to release more essential content to
the surroundings.

The damage of the cell structure could be observed through the Scanning Electron Micrograph (SEM) analysis.
The magnification of the SEM imaging in this work was at 500 time magnification as method describe in previous
study (Fazila and Halim, 2012).

The expansion of the cell is due to the water intake through diffusion. In order to determine the amount of
water presence, thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) conducted. Studies on TGA of agarwood chips is very limited.
TGA can determine the moisture content, volatile matter, ash and residue (Chiu et al, 2009).

2. Methodology

2.1. Material

The agarwood chips from the species Aquilaria Malaccensis were obtained from a plantation in Jengka, Pahang,
Malaysia. Tap water was used for the soaking process. The gas supply for the stove is from the Petronas Liquified
Petroleum Gas.

2.2. Sample preparation

Sufficient tap water was added to 25 kg agarwood until the wood is fully immersed into the water. The wood was
left to soak for 7, 14, 21 and 28 days. After soaking, the wood collected and dried under the sun to remove the
moisture. The moist woods were flipped over for every 2 hours to ensure even drying. The process followed by
extraction process with 125 kg of water added into the distiller as describe in section 2.3. The distiller used is made
of copper. Experiment repeated with unsoaked wood. Wood samples were collected before and after distillation
process.
 Veronica Alexander Jok et al. / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 195 (2015) 2443 – 2450 2445

2.3. Hydrodistillation

The distillation apparatus include condenser, receiving flask and digital thermometer. The experiment runs
continuously for 96 hours. 96 hours selected based on our preliminary study for determining the optimize distillation
time. Distillation method used is a conventional water distillation technique. The distiller is a custom design, made
of copper with the capacity of 250 L. Water was used as heat exchanging medium in the condenser.
The agarwood chips and water were added into the distiller with the ratio of 1:5 (weight/volume). It was left
overnight to ensure all the agarwood chips are wet and fully immersed into the water. The initial temperature was
recorded and the stove started. The temperature readings were taken for every 30 minutes until 96 hours. The gas
flow rate for heating was set at 2.2 gallon/mins for entire experiment to ensure constant heating.

2.4. Scanning Electron Micrograph (SEM) analysis

Morphology of the cell structures were observed at 500 times magnification. Agarwood chips sample were
coated with a layer of gold (Au) to enhance the image appearance. The samples were coated by using Mini Sputter
Coater (Quorum Technologies, Model SC7620). It is followed by introducing the sample for SEM imaging by using
Hitachi Tabletop Microscope (TM-3000). The comparison based on the appearance and pore presence done on both
soaked and unsoaks samples.

2.5. Thermogravimetric Analysis

The thermogravimetric analysis conducted by using Thermogravimetri Analyzer Mettler Toledo. The heating
range was from 25°C to 900°C in Nitrogen (N2) gas. The heating rate was set at 20°C min-1. Sample size used for
analysis was 15 to 20 mg.

3. Results and Discussion

Fig 1. Agarwood oil yield at different soaking time.

Figure 1 shows the agarwood oil yield with respect to soaking time. Oil yield for 14 days soaking time shows the
highest amount while oil yield at 28 days is the lowest. Previous studies shows that as the soaking time increase, the
acidity of the soaking medium increase too (Bayram et al, 2004). While the inner part of the cell in hypotonic
2446 Veronica Alexander Jok et al. / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 195 (2015) 2443 – 2450

condition, acidity of the soaking medium corrode the cell wall from outside. Over time, the cell walls damages and
release the content to the surrounding environment. At 21 and 28 days of soaking time, the contents of agarwood
chips start to be released to the soaking medium. This has caused lower oil recovery due to loss in the soaking
medium. In this work, the optimum time for soaking the agarwood chips is 14 days. However, further study on the
soaking medium need to be done to confirm the presence of the content.

A b

C d
 Veronica Alexander Jok et al. / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 195 (2015) 2443 – 2450 2447

e f

g h

i j

Fig. 2. Cross sectional structure diagram by Scanning Electron Micrograph (SEM) analysis. (a) Unsoak wood before HD; (b) Unsoak wood
after HD ; (c) Soaked wood 7 days before HD; (d) Soaked wood 7 days after HD; (e) Soaked wood 14 days before HD; (f) Soaked wood 14
days after HD; (g) Soaked wood 21 days before HD; (h) Soaked wood 21 days after HD; (i) Soaked wood 28 days before HD; (j) Soaked wood
28 days after HD
2448 Veronica Alexander Jok et al. / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 195 (2015) 2443 – 2450

The microstructure of the agarwood chips could be present visually as in Figure 2 (a) to (j). For chips sample
before distillation, it is observed that there is expansion. This however contradictive to the unsoak sample as
observed from Figure 2 (a), (c), (e), (g) and (i). On the other hand, the chips after distillation show damage structure
due to long exposure to heat during water distillation process (Xu and Li, 2014) as observed from Figure 2 (b), (d),
(f), (h) and (j). Microstructures after distillation were similar to each other since all of it undergo the same heating
process but possess different oil yield due to soaking process. Bigger pores and cracks observed from the chips after
distillation.

a b

c d

e f

g h
 Veronica Alexander Jok et al. / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 195 (2015) 2443 – 2450 2449

i j

Fig. 3.Thermogravimetic Analysis (TGA) and Derivative Thermogravimetric Analysis (DTG) curves for agarwood chips sample. (a) Unsoak
wood before HD; (b) Unsoak wood after HD ; (c) Soaked wood 7 days before HD; (d) Soaked wood 7 days after HD; (e) Soaked wood 14 days
before HD; (f) Soaked wood 14 days after HD; (g) Soaked wood 21 days before HD; (h) Soaked wood 21 days after HD; (i) Soaked wood 28
days before HD; (j) Soaked wood 28 days after HD

Table 1. Summary of moisture content (%) of samples from TGA curves

Soaking time (Days) Before Distillation After Distillation

0 1.56 9.90
7 9.90 8.25
14 9.06 2.89
21 1.30 1.87
28 1.70 7.13

It is observed that less moisture can be retained in samples after distillation process, excluding unsoak sample.
This is due to the heavily damage structure of wood after distillation. It cannot retain water in the cell.
Contradictively, chips samples before distillation shows high water retention except for unsoak chips.

4. Conclusion

The maximum oil yield can be obtained by agarwood chips soaked for 14 days. Soaking process able to changes
the morphology of the agarwood chips in order to enhance the oil yield but must not over soak to 21 and 28 days.
2450 Veronica Alexander Jok et al. / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 195 (2015) 2443 – 2450

Acknowledgements

The authors want to thank Fundamental Research Grant Scheme (FRGS) for the funding. Special gratitude also
expressed for Faculty of Chemical Engineering for allowing the usage of facilities. Many thanks to all who have
been directly and indirectly helped through the work.

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