Study of Valerian officinalis essential oil Extraction by Steam Distillation

Eessential oils extracted from herbal plants are high performance material used in pharmaceutical, cosmetic and fragrance industries.This material is extracted by different procedures. Steam distillation is one of the best and economic methods for extraction of essential oils from the herbal plants.In this method steam diffuses through the plant and dissolves the oil into the vapor phase. The vapor arises to the top of extraction vessel and after condensation the essential oil will be gathered in the receiver. The weight of extracted oil is dependent to hydrodynamic parameters such as flow rate of vapor and operational condition as temperature and pressure. The subject of this research is extraction of essential oil from Valerain officinalis by steam distillation. A laboratory set up constructed and the effect of steam flow rate was considered as the main variable.It was concluded that decreasing steam flow rate caused an obvious increase in amount of extract, because of the more residence time in the bed.