Comparison of the novel cold-steam distillation and conventional method for isolation of essential oil from rosemary leaves

Many of extraction methods are time-consuming and energy intensive, in addition, most of them are not safe to extract original materials without changing their molecular structure, mainly because of high temperature of process. According to importance of Rosemarinus officinalis in pharmacology and food industry as well as perfumery, there are many publications dealing with the extraction of natural components from this plant using alternative techniques. In this research work, traditional steam distillation (SD) and innovative cold-steam distillation (CSD) techniques has been compared and evaluated for their effectiveness in the isolation of essential oil from fresh leaves of Rosmarinus officinalis cultivated in Qamsar-Kashan.