OPTIMASI PENINGKATAN KADAR PATCHOULI ALCOHOL DALAM MINYAK ATSIRI DAUN NILAM MENGGUNAKAN METODE DISTILASI VAKUM DENGAN VARIASI SUHU (Optimization of Increasing Patchouli Alcohol Content in Essential Oil of Patchouli Leaves Using Vacuum Distillation with Temperature Variations)

Abstract

Patchouli oil is kind of atsiri oil which called eteris oil or fly oil. Esteris oil or atsiri oil is volatile oil with different compotition and its boiling point. Firstly, Indonesia produced dirty nilam oil with rendemen < 3 % and pacthouli alcohol < 32 %, then crude pacthouli oil or dirty patchouli oil was expored in low price. Patchouli oil has good prospects as an export commodity. The content of patchouli alcohol of patchouli oil quality in Vacuum distillation can be increased, but the cause of dark patchouli oil. This research aim is to study vacuum distillation process to isolate patchouli alcohol from patchouli leaf essential oils, get the optimum condition from this process, and increase the brightness of the color of the vacuum distillation of patchouli oil with chelating. Patchouli oil are entred to the distillation tube, run the distillation process with fixed temperature (130 oC, 140 oC and 150 oC)and vacuum pressure 0,4719 atm (358,6735 mmHg). After distillation process we got the wighest volume and wighest content of patchouli alcohol at the temperature 150 oC, that the concentration of patchouli alcohol is 37 % and the volume of distilat is 38 ml. The result meets the standards of essential oil of patchouli oil SNI 06-2385-2006. Keywords: patchouli leaf oil, patchouli alcohol, vacuum distillation