Ultrasonic and Soxhlet Extraction Characteristics of the Orange Peel from Moro Cultivars Grown in Albania

In the course of the actual investigation, we focused our research on the extraction of the orange peel extract of Moro cultivars grown in Albania using ultrasonic and soxhlet extractions techniques. The ultrasonic extractions performed in SONOREX TK 52 40 - 60V / 100 W, using methylene chloride and applying sonication times up to two hours, revealed the presence of more than 20 components among which limonene, as the major extract component represents more than 91 % of the extract, followed by linalool, beta-myrcene, decanal, alpha-pinene and valencene. More than 90 % of the extraction yield was obtained within 30 min. of extraction. The ratio between extracted components changed significantly in this method while using various solvents. The highest extraction yield was recovered when using methanol (0.548 %) followed by methylene chloride (0.414 %), hexane + acetone (0.272 %), hexane (0.141 %). In parallel to this method, the soxhlet extractions performed in a 20 ml soxhlet extractor for 6 hours (56 cycles) using the same solvents showed surprisingly lower extraction yields and different component ratios for all of them. In hexane + acetone the percentage of limonene was 85 %, meanwhile, in methanol this percentage decreased until 43 %. In this comparison the advantage of ultrasounds in desorption, diffusion and dissolution of components from the sample matrices is obvious.