STUDIES ON THE VOLATILE OIL OF MOLSA CHINENSIS BY SUPERCRITICAL CO_2 EXTRACTION

Molsa chinensis, an annual herb plant, is an important medical plant in China. In the paper, we firstly studied the effect on the pressure, the temperature, the CO 2 flowing, extracting time to the extraction rate of the volatile oil by supercritical CO 2 extraction, and determined its optimal extracting conditions: the pressure 15 Mpa, the temperature 45 ℃, CO 2 flowing rate 25 kg/h and the time 90 min. The volatile oils were obtained by supercritical CO 2, steam distillation and petroleum ether extraction, extraction rate3.56%, 1.62% and 1.87% respectively. The results show that the qualities of the volatile oil by supercritical CO 2 extraction is better than two the latter, extraction rate higher, and the time extracting shorter, without solvent remainder.