Extraction of limonene acid from orange peels.

Limonene is an important constituent of orange peels. Limonene has huge market potential as a herbal product and as an important component in cosmetics. In the present investigation, locally produced oranges were procured and limonene was obtained from these orange peels using steam distillation. The limonene thus obtained has been characterized to obtain its physical properties such as colour, odour, specific gravity, refractive index, iodine value, acid value and saponification value. It was found that the limonene that is produced in this experiment has nearly the same physical properties as that of the theoretically reported values. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]