Preliminary study: Comparison of kinetic models of oil extraction from vetiver (vetiveria zizanioides) by microwave hydrodistillation

In Indonesia, vetiver oil is one commodity that plays an important role in the country's foreign exchange earnings. Currently, the extraction of essential oil from vetiver still uses conventional methods. Therefore, the aim of this study was to know and verify the kinetics and mechanism of microwave hydrodistillation of vetiver based on two models. In this study, microwave hydrodistillation was used to extract essential oils from vetiver. The extraction was carried out in nine extraction cycles of 20 min to 3 hours. The rate constant, the equilibrium extraction capacity, and the initial extraction rate were calculated using the two models. Kinetics of oil extraction from vetiver by microwave hydrodistillation proved that the extraction process was based on the second-order extraction model. The second-order model was satisfactorily applied, with high coefficients of correlation (R² = 0.9427), showing that it well described the process.