Resin purification from Dragons Blood by using sub critical solvent extraction method

Abstract

Jernang resin (dragon blood) is the world's most expensive sap. The resin obtained from jernang that grows only on the islands of Sumatra and Borneo. Jernang resin is in demand by the State of China, Hong Kong, and Singapore since they contain compounds that have the potential dracohordin as a medicinal ingredient in the biological and pharmacological activity such as antimicrobial, antiviral, antitumor and cytotoxic activity. The resin extracting process has conventionally been done by drizzly with maceration method as one way of processing jernang, which is done by people in Bireuen, Aceh. However, there are still significant obstacles, namely the quality of the yield that obtained lower than the jernang resin. The technological innovation carried out by forceful extraction process maceration by using methanol produced a yield that is higher than the extraction process maceration method carried out in Bireuen. Nevertheless, the use of methanol as a solvent would raise the production costs due to the price, which is relatively more expensive and non-environmentally friendly. To overcome the problem, this research proposed a process, which is known as subcritical solvent method. This process is cheap, and also abundant and environmentally friendly. The results show that the quality of jernang resins is better than the one that obtained by the processing group in Bireuen. The quality of the obtained jernang by maceration method is a class-A quality based on the quality specification requirements of jernang (SNI 1671: 2010) that has resin (b/b) 73%, water (w/w) of 6.8%, ash (w/b) 7%, impurity (w/w) 32%, the melting point of 88°C and red colours. While the two-stage treatment obtained a class between class-A and super quality, with the resin (b/b) 0.86%, water (w/w) of 6.5%, ash (w/w) of 2.8%, levels of impurities (w/w) of 9%, the melting point of 88 °C and dark-red colours.