Page 39 - วารสารกรมการแพทย์แผนไทยฯ ปีที่ 5 ฉบับที่ 1

Journal of Thai Traditional & Alternative Medicine Vol. 5 No. 1 January - April 2007 Û˜

Abundance

Absence of
indole peak

Time

Figure 8 Magnified total ion chromatogram of oil extracted from fresh M. alba flowers by hexane extraction (absence of indole peak).

flowers were simply put on buffalo fat and the fragrance method in our study, in terms of odor and chemical
was gradually adsorbed without any carrier, whereas in composition, is encouraging. To the best of our knowl-
the steam distillation process, M. alba flowers were boiled edge, prior to our study no enfleurage method has uti-
in water and directly exposed to high pressure steam, lized buffalo fat to adsorb the fragrance of flowers. The
which may result in a loss of indole content. Indole was enfleurage method may be a new alternative technique
not found in the oil sample produced by hexane extrac- to extract high-quality fragrance from flowers in Thai-
tion, although M. alba flowers were not exposed to any land, as buffalo fat is cheap and readily available. Fur-
harsh conditions. The polarity of hexane and its mis- ther studies of the enfleurage method, with the novel
cible factor may result in the absence of indole from oil extraction process of buffalo fat and other animal fats
extracted by this solvent. The major constituents found are necessary in order to develop the most suitable ad-
in M. alba flower oil produced by hexane extraction sorption fat for this method.
were 2-methylbutanoic (33.01% in content) and linalool
(28.92% in content). Conclusions
Owing to the fact that steam distillation is a method The current study extracted oil from M. alba flow-
that was already used to extract M. alba flower oil in ers, one of the world most famous aromatic flowers,
several studies, the results showed very similar chemi- using steam distillation, solvent extraction and the
cal compositions. Hexane extraction involves a high enfleurage method. The enfleurage method was adapted
cost to remove the solvent from the oil. One technique from the traditional method by using developed buffalo
left to develop is the enfleurage method, which is not fat to adsorb the fragrance instead of spermaceti or wool
commonly used by Thai researchers or the industry. fat. In comparing of GC-MS data of the oil samples
The good quality of oil produced by the enfleurage obtained from these three methods, ester compounds