Citrus Waste Used by Iranian Researchers to Produce Essential Oil
“This product has similar counterparts, but so far, the production of essential oil from citrus fruits has not been done,” Nasrin Saqqazadeh, the director of the Center, told ANA.
Noting that the essential oil is widely used in the food industry and perfume and fragrance industry, she said, “We imported the product from France in the past, and we hope that it will replace the imported product.”
“One of the side products after production of the essential oil is pectin which is actually a thickener in the food industry, what we see in candy and chocolate or jam as the consistency in the product is created by pectin,” Saqqazadeh said.
In a relevant development in February, a technological company in Iran had also succeeded in manufacturing a device which can produce the by-product of essence from the moisture of the fruit-drying process.
“Essence extraction is being promoted by the company in a traditional way. We boil the raw materials with indirect heat and obtain the essence from the steam,” Hassan Abdollahzadeh, the managing director of Ardabil Machine-Making company, stationed at the incubator center of Islamic Azad University’s Ardabil branch, told ANA.
“In this process, two products are obtained; we dry the fruits and at the same time extract essence, and the added value of the essence is twice that of the dried product,” he said.
“When we put 1,000 kg of fruit into the machine, at the end 100 kg of dried product is taken, and we do not allow the loss of fruit moisture and produce the by-product of essence,” Abdollahzadeh added.
4155/v
