Microwave-assisted distillation of ylang-ylang flowers: A sustainable and efficient approach for essential oil extraction

Microwave-assisted distillation (MAD) was compared with wood-heated distillation (WHD) and laboratory-scale distillation (LD) for the production of ylang-ylang essential oil. The yield of total essential oil collected by MAD was 29% higher than WHD and 23% higher than LD, while the distillation time was significantly reduced. Indeed, the oil was recovered within 40 min with 2.7% yield using MAD, whereas LD and WHD required 19 h. The quality of the collected fractions was EXTRA SUP (ES), EXTRA (E), grade I, II and III according to density, ester index and refractive index. MAD produced 81% high quality ES and E, 16% grade I and 2% low quality grade III fractions. WHD and LD produced approximately 15% ES, 15% grade I and 70% grade III fractions. At the molecular level, 15 compounds were identified by GC-MS according to the French ISO standard. The higher amount of odoriferous light oxygenated compounds and lower amount of sesquiterpenic hydrocarbons in ES and Grade I fractions collected with MAD confirmed its high quality. Moreover, the Grade III fraction obtained with MAD showed a high content of oxygenated compounds compared to LD and WHD. • Microwave-assisted distillation was used to obtain essential oil from Ylang-Ylang • Microwave-assisted distillation was compared with wood-heated distillation and classical laboratory-scale distillation • The time was significantly reduced using microwaves • The oil quality was improved according to physico-chemical parameters and molecular scale analysis