Portable microwave assisted extraction: An original concept for green analytical chemistry

•Development of a new portable instrumentation for the extraction of essential oils.•Extraction of essential oil from rosemary directly in a crop.•Procedure appropriate for teaching laboratory.

This paper describes a portable microwave assisted extraction apparatus (PMAE) for extraction of bioactive compounds especially essential oils and aromas directly in a crop or in a forest. The developed procedure, based on the concept of green analytical chemistry, is appropriate to obtain direct in-field information about the level of essential oils in natural samples and to illustrate green chemical lesson and research. The efficiency of this experiment was validated for the extraction of essential oil of rosemary directly in a crop and allows obtaining a quantitative information on the content of essential oil, which was similar to that obtained by conventional methods in the laboratory.