Shafinas Abdullah, Siti Nur Nabilah Hussin, and Fatin Farhana Zakaria
Keywords: Citrus aurantifolia, D-limonene, ethanol, benzophenone, essential oil
Abstract: Citrus aurantifolia (lime) is one of the cultivated plants that contains great phytochemical to improve human health. The aims of this study are to extract citrus aurantifolia essential oil from citrus peels and then produce a perfume product by using the extracted essential oil as the main ingredient. This study is going to help the environment by using natural sources instead of synthetic sources which is more environmental friendly, cheap, and green product. The essential oil of Citrus aurantifolia peels was extracted by using the steam distillation process in order to get the citral and limonene compound. The extracted lime essential oil was further characterized using GC-MS to identify the chemical constituent present. The effectiveness of the extracted essential oil as an antibacterial agent has been investigated. Lastly, the perfume was prepared by mixing the extracted lime essential oil with ethanol and benzophenone and the physical test of the prepared perfume has been observed. From the result obtained, GC-MS results shows that the major constituents present in the extracted essential oil is D-limonene. The highest content of D-limonene can help in antibacterial activity and this is in line with the result obtained from the antibacterial study that shows the ability of extracted essential oil to inhibit both gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria. The prepared perfume shows that the color remains unchanged if it was kept in the amber glass bottle and has pH 7.66 which is safe to be used on skin
