Techno-economic and environmental assessment of essential oil extraction from Oregano (Origanum vulgare) and Rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis) in Colombia

This study shows a techno-economic and environmental assessment of the extraction of essential oil from Oregano and Rosemary in Colombian. Experiments were carried out using water distillation technology with extraction yields of 8.14 kg/tonne and 8.43 kg/tonne for Oregano and Rosemary, respectively. The samples were analyzed to determine the essential oil composition and use this data as starting point in the technical analysis. Three extraction technologies (i.e., supercritical fluid, solvent, and water distillation) were modeled and assessed. The effect of energy integration was considered by assessing two scenarios per technology (i.e., without integration, full integration). In the case of Oregano, the lowest production costs were obtained for extraction by supercritical fluids with full energy integration (6.71 USD/kg). In the case of Rosemary, the lowest production costs were those for fully integrated water distillation technology (6.57 USD/kg). For both Oregano and Rosemary, the lowest potential environmental impact (Oregano: 0.018 PEI/kg, Rose: 0.016 PEI/kg) and carbon footprint (Ore: 0.80 kg CO2-e/kg oil, Rose: 0.78 kg CO2-e/kg oil) were those for water distillation with full energy integration.