ISSN print edition: 0366-6352 ISSN electronic edition: 1336-9075 Registr. No.: MK SR 9/7 Published monthly

Enzyme-assisted extraction of citrus essential oil

Mónica L. Chávez-González, Lluvia I. López-López, Raúl Rodríguez-Herrera, Juan C. Contreras-Esquivel, and Cristóbal N. Aguilar

^aFood Research Department, School of Chemistry, Universidad Autónoma de Coahuila. Boulevard Venustiano Carranza, Saltillo, Coahuila 25280, México

E-mail: cristobal.aguilar@uadec.edu.mx

Abstract: Citrus peels are underutilized in the processing industry and are commonly considered as waste as their chemical composition varies. However, it is possible to recover some value-added products, one of them being essential oil, which is widely used in the food industry. Due to the current increase in global demand for citrus essential oils, it is necessary to implement processes directed to the maximum recovery of oil from waste peels. Numerous efforts have been made without achieving significant improvements in yields. In this work, enzymatic pretreatments of orange, lemon, and grapefruit peels were applied to achieve increased yields of essential oil extracted by hydro-distillation. In two of the sources it was possible to increase the essential oil yield from two to six times. Moreover, a significant amount of fermentable sugars which can be used in the production of certain other compounds of interest through fermentation was obtained.

Keywords: orange – lemon – grapefruit – cellulases – essential oil – fermentable sugars

Full paper is available at www.springerlink.com.

DOI: 10.1515/chempap-2015-0234

Chemical Papers 70 (4) 412–417 (2016)