Page 131 - Demo

SECTION I: MOLECULAR GENETIC ENGINEERING AND BIOCHEMICAL TECHNOLOGY 135Figure 3. Effect of distillation time on essential oil recovery yield of black pepper, (A) Oil volume (mL), (B) Oil yield (%) with different input material loadingThe oil volumes of black pepper oil with different studied mass were all increased with time, the more input mass of raw materials were and the greater volume of essential oil obtained (Figure 3A). The oil amount was steep accerlerated in the first 60 min and slowly increased from 60 to 240 min. After 240 min, the oil volumes were largely reached 5.2, 6.5 and 8.0 mL, insignificantly increased between 240 and 300 min, and from 300 to 360 min it reached the plateau level of 5.2, 6.6 and 8.1 mL from 300, 400 and 500 g of black pepper, respectively (Figure 3A). In addition, the oil yields from the input materials of 300, 400 and 500 g were calculated as 1.49, 1.42 and 1.39%, respectively (Figure 3B). It was found that the total oil volumes were proportional to the mass of input materials with the same conditions of hydro-distillation. Besides, it may take a little longer time to get a maximum oil yield for a higher input mass of raw material. 3.3. Effect of raw material size One of the most important factors affecting on essential oil production is the size of material applied for the distillation-based