Desenvolvimento de Metodologia Semi Industrial para a Extração do Óleo Essencial de Jambú (Acmella oleracea)

Abstract

Jambú, Acmella oleracea, is a typical plant from the northern region of Brazil that is widely used for medicinal and culinary purposes. It has several pharmacological properties such as: anesthetic, anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, among others. These attributes and properties of the plant are due to the numerous chemical components present in its essential oil, especially spilanthol. It is estimated that the jambú plant has around 0.7% essential oil in its mass composition. The objective of this work will be to carry out the extraction of the essential oil of jambú, through hydrodistillation and steam distillation, from a single extractor on a pilot scale, evaluating the yield of each extraction, and, in addition, it has as one of the objectives is the analysis of oils extracted from a gas chromatograph coupled to a mass spectrometer (GC/MS). It was verified, from the results of the extractions, that the two extraction techniques were able to reach the objective of extracting the essential oil of jambú with the aid of a single equipment, with the result of a yield of 0.106% for the extraction by hydrodistillation with about 63 components identified in its essential oil and 0.146% for steam distillation with 51 components identified. Thus, it is concluded that both techniques, despite the yield values being far from the value of 0.7%, proved to be good options to carry out the extraction of jambú essential oil on a large scale, even in the case of simple and cheaper techniques compared to more sophisticated techniques.