Qualitative Analysis of the Extractives of Orange Wood

Abstract

Orange production is the third largest agricultural activity in São Paulo state, Brazil but, unfortunately, the orange orchards there have been facing phytossanitary problems.  As a result, orchards are being eradicated by burning which may not be the most appropriate way of dealing with this potentially useful biomass. A better approach might be to extract the valuable chemicals from the orange wood, but little information exists on the nature of the extractive components and their chemical potential. Accordingly, the aim of this study was to determine the qualitative chemical composition of orange wood extractives. Four solvent systems were examined in this work (acetone, ethanol:toluene [1:2], dichloromethane and water at three different temperatures), and 221 different chemical components were extracted, and 33 components were identified in the extracts using gas chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry.  The ethanol:toluene system extracted the most compounds (48.5% of the total) and the dichloromethane extracted the least (16.3% of the total).  Based on a literature review of potential applications, 79% of the identified chemical components in the extractives have potential use in the chemical, pharmaceutical and/or food processing area. This is important information for the future of orange wood utilization and warrants further studies related to the quantitative analysis of the compounds.