Cold Plasma-Assisted Lavender Essential-Oil Pilot Production: Impact on Oil Yield, Isolation Kinetics and Chemical Parameters

This study investigated the influence of filamentary cold plasma (FCP) pretreatment on the isolation kinetics, yield and quality of lavender essential oil obtained by hydrodistillation (HD) and steam distillation (SD) at pilot scale. Lavender flowers were processed with or without FCP treatment under identical HD and SD conditions. FCP promoted tissue electroporation and the formation of additional mass transfer pathways in the calyx, shortening isolation time and increasing essential-oil yield from 2.46% to 2.65% for HD and from 2.33% to 2.65% for SD. In the SD process, FCP reduced process time from 240 ± 5.8 min to 95.3 ± 6.1 min to obtain an equal oil yield volume and decreased the specific energy consumption from 0.35 to 0.14 kWh mL−1 of essential oil. GC–MS analysis confirmed that FCP did not deteriorate the volatile profile; linalool and linalyl acetate were the dominant constituents, with the relative contribution of other compounds depending on the distillation method. The combined linalool and linalyl acetate fraction increased from 65.9% to 68.2% after HD and from 63.49% to 68.11% after SD, indicating partial conversion of bound essential oil into a more extractable form. These results demonstrate that conveyor-based FCP pretreatment can intensify lavender oil production while preserving oil quality and provide practical parameters for assessing industrial-scale implementation.