African Journal of Food Science and Technology

Influence of drying air velocity on the chemical composition of essential oil from lemon grass

Abstract

Ronicely Pereira Rocha, Evandro de Castro Melo, Antônio Jacinto Demuner, Lauri Lourenço Radünz, José Bon Corbín

Lemon grass (Cymbopogon citratus (D.C.) Stapf) is widely cultivated in Brazil and utilized for medicinal and industries purposes. The chemical composition of its essential oil is wide, but it has three main components: myrcene, geranial and neral. The effect of drying air velocity upon the chemical composition of the essential oil extracted from Brazilian lemon grass leaves was evaluated. The drying treatments were arranged in randomized blocks with a 3x2 factorial design: 3 drying air velocities (0.8 m s-1, 1.3 m s-1 and 1.8 m s-1) x 2 air velocity control methods, with three repetitions each. The essential oil components, after drying, were compared with the values obtained from the fresh plant (control). All drying treatments showed no difference for the main components (myrcene, geranial and neral) of the essential oil obtained from lemon grass, when compared to the fresh plant (control).

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