Performance of reverse osmosis and nanofiltration membranes in the fractionation and retention of patchouli essential oil

Abstract

Patchouli essential oil consists of over 24 different components. Patchoulol has been known for over a century as the most important component of this essential oil, being widely used in the perfumery and cosmetics industries. Recent research has demonstrated that another component of patchouli essential oil, alpha-bulnesene, has pharmaceutical properties, providing a decrease in thromboxane formation. In this study, three different membranes were evaluated in terms of their fractionation capability and retention of patchouli oil in supercritical media, aiming at the separation and concentration of the main oil components (patchoulol and a-bulnesene) and regeneration of CO2. The membranes tested showed good resistance under the experimental conditions used, but did not show good fractionation and concentration of the patchouli oil components. The reverse osmosis membrane gave the highest oil retention (0.95) and lowest reduction in the permeate flux of the CO2 in the presence of the essential oil.