Essential Oils from <i>Humulus Lupulus</i> scCO₂ Extract by Hydrodistillation and Microwave-Assisted Hydrodistillation

Two different extraction methods were used for a comparative study of essential oils obtained from the Humulus lupulus scCO2 (sc-supercritical) extract: microwave-assisted hydrodistillation (MAHD) and conventional hydrodistillation (HD). As a result, the best conditions for the maximum essential oil production were determined for the MAHD method at 335 W microwave power for 30 min at water to raw material ratio of 8:3. The obtained essential oils were enriched in &#946;-myrcene in the amount of 74.13%&#8315;89.32% (wt%). Moreover, the first application for determination of the above-mentioned volatile compounds by supercritical fluid chromatography (SFC) with photo-diode array detection (PDA) is presented, which in comparison with gas chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry (GC-MS/MS) resulted in similar values for &#946;-myrcene and &#945;-humulene in obtained samples within less than 1 min