Pressurised Liquid Extraction (PLE) was used to extract volatile oil from kaffir lime leaves.
Conventional extraction methods; hydrodistillation and Soxhlet are very time consuming and tedious. Therefore, a rapid extraction method is needed for volatile oil extraction. In this study, volatile flavour components in oleoresin were identified by GCMSD and the main constituents obtained were aldehydes, monoterpene, diterpene, triterpene, sesquiterpene and aromatic hydrocarbons.
Oleoresin extracted using PLE (100°C, 1000 psi, and 30 min) contained significantly (p≤0.05) the highest yield (42.27%, dry weight basis) in comparison to conventional methods; hydrodistillation (0.35%, dry weight basis) and Soxhlet extraction (22.79%, dry weight basis).
Higher quality oleoresin was also obtained with PLE in term of quantitative major compounds; citronellal, linalool and myrcene.
