The famous essential "patchouli oil" is often linked to King Tutankhamun's oil, according to sites specializing in the history of perfumes.
"New Directions Aromatics" company in Canada announced the discovery of ten gallons of Patchouli essential oil inside Tutankhamun's tomb.
The historical review of this essential oil is an attempt to emphasize its historical and current importance.
Patchouli oil is one of the essential oils in the perfume industry. It is obtained from the patchouli plant, known scientifically as "Caplin Pogostemon," an aromatic flowering plant that grows in a shrub up to one meter high.
Extracting the oil from this plant uses "steam distillation," the most common method to extract and isolate essential oils from plants. However, the process takes time and is energy-consuming.
King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) researchers developed a new method for producing the oil from the Chlamydomonas Reinhardtii algae to make the process easier.
The new method was announced last July in the latest issue of the journal "Green Chemistry."
The unicellular algae have a diameter of about 10 micrometers and are widely found worldwide in soil and fresh water.
It is vital commercially and is used in the production of biopharmaceuticals and biofuels. This is due to the ease of cultivation and the ability to alter them using genetics.
A KAUST research team of experts in bioengineering, water reuse, and recycling was able to extract more accessible and abundantly patchouli oil, which perfume sites refer to as "Tutankhamun perfume."
The technology relies on a membrane built of hollow microfibers that separates the liquid containing microalgae from the "dodecane" solvent, which is used to dissolve the patchouli oil from the algae.
The product is separated and concentrated using other specialized membranes selected and designed by artificial intelligence. It allows the solvent to be recycled again, making it more sustainable than other separation processes.
Researchers announced their next step in a report published on the KAUST University website, saying they plan to move to industrial levels to develop membranes with larger surface areas and explore the use of different algal strains to produce many compounds.
The production of Tutankhamun's perfume oil, or patchouli oil, from Chlamydomonas Reinhardtii remains extremely important, as it created a new source after the patchouli plant was its only one.
Patchouli belongs to the mint family (Lamiaceae), and it bears small flowers that tend to be white-pink color.
It was initially cultivated in India and Southeast Asia and expanded to regions with a tropical climate.
According to Sherman Litt, author of "Essential Oils Natural Remedies: A Complete Guide to Nature's Gifts, Indonesia is one of the most oil-producing countries of Patchouli."
