Income generation of rural community by using solar distillation system

Abstract

Processing of different herbs by distillation technique was one of the agro-based industries which lie in medium temperature range (60-280 oC). This study has been carried out for essential oils extraction using solar distillation system as well as to perform the quality analysis of eucalyptus leaves (comaldulensis) essential oils using GC MS analysis for income generation of rural community. The solar distillation system consists of a primary reflector (10 m2 Scheffler concentrator), a secondary reflector, distillation still, condenser and Florentine flasks. Results have shown that the essential oil from 10 kg fresh eucalyptus leaves (comaldulensis) for different experiments were extracted to be 29.7, 30, 28.2, 29.9 and 30.2 ml. GC MS analysis shows that eucalyptol (C10H16O) was identified as the most dominant compound of eucalyptus leaves (comaldulensis) essential oil (50.91%). This is the great opportunity of small scale farmer to on-farm solar industry for income generation of rural community. Keywords: Scheffler concentrator, Solar distillation system, Essential oil, GC-MS analysis, Income generation.