ABSTRACT

The experiment was designed to determine the effect of two different solvent (N-hexane and petroleum ether) on chemical composition of lemongrass oil. The oil was extracted from lemongrass using Nhexane and petroleum ether using soxhlet extraction method. The chemical composition of essential oil obtained were analyse using GC-MS machine. The result shows 4.4% of oil were obtained from lemongrass using N-hexane and 4.9% were obtained using petroleum ether. The composition analysed by GC-MS Machine were 16.52% of Trimethyl [4-(2-methyl-4-oxo-2pentyl)] phenoxysilane, 4.15% acetamide, 6.54% hexamethyl, 6.58% silane and 2, 4, 6- cycloheptatrien-1-one with peak area of 8.67% in both solvent. But the chemical constituent present in lemongrass is higher using petroleum ether compared to that of N-hexane.This indicated that petroleum ether is much better in oil extraction and analyizing chemical constituents of lemongrass.