Washing and Chopping Pre-treatment Effect of Vetiver Roots on Vetiver Oil Yield and Distillation Time

Vetiver is a type of grass mainly used for its roots to be extracted into vetiver oil. Despite the increasing market demand, the productivity of vetiver oil in Indonesia still consider low. One of the determinant factors of the extraction yield is the pre-treatment before distillation. This study aimed to determine the best pre-treatment method to improve the vetiver oil extraction using water and steam distillation by looking at the yield, distillation rate, and forecasted distillation duration. The distillation process was using water and steam distillation method for 9 hours. The data analysis method used Durbin-Watson autocorrelation analysis. The feasibility test of polynomial regression was modelled with the F test and ANOVA variance test. The result showed that the combination of washing 2-3 times and chopping pre-treatments of vetiver roots with a size of ± 5 cm could significantly increase the extracted vetiver oil by producing the highest yield (0.36% (wet-based) and 0.47% (dry based)), the highest extraction rate (0.057%/h) and the fastest forecasted duration of the distillation (10.5 hours). The combination of washing and chopping pre-treatments of vetiver roots was the best method and could be an economical solution for low productivity problems of vetiver oil in Indonesia.