1. Introduction
Agarwood is one of the plants of the Spermatophyta Division, Angiospermae sub-division, and Dicotyledoneae class. Agarwood is a non-timber forest product (NTFP) commodity which has a very high selling price and a higher price than other NTFPs.
Agarwood is used as a basic ingredient in the perfume, incense, cosmetic, and pharmaceutical industries so that agarwood can be regarded as a type of NTFP commodity that has multipurpose value (Sumarna, 2002). A very high potency of agarwood usually comes from the type Aquilaria malaccensis.
Agarwood is a plant that has a very high economic value which has been traded by the Indonesian people since the Dutch government in 1918-1925 with a volume of ± 11 tons/year.
After the independence era, agarwood exports increased, recorded in 1983-1987 the volume was ± 103 tons/year, in 1990-1998 it reached 165 tons/year, and until the end of 2002 it reached 446 tons/year.
Indonesia is well-known as a country that owns tropical rain forests, which is supported by its geographical location, climate, seasons, and the relatively long period of sunshine. Biologically, such conditions can produce opportunities for the formation of a high diversity of potential plant species resources.
In the forest area, between 30,000-40,000 species of wood-producing plants will be found and the potential for non-timber forest products (NTFPs) has not been calculated. All of them have benefits as a source of food, industry, and plants producing herbal medicines. One of the NTFP plant groups that have been known and become one of the potential sources of community life and has high commercial value is gaharu (Sumarna, 2014).
East Kalimantan is the most important agarwood-producing area in Indonesia, especially the type of Aqualaria spp which is known to produce the highest quality agarwood. The potential for agarwood in Kalimantan is quite large, 27 percent of the total gaharu in Indonesia comes from East Kalomantan, which is 2752 tons. Gaharu is obtained from nature and cultivation (Ministry of Forestry, 2004).
Agarwood is the main seed of Non-Timber Forest Products (NTFPs). Gaharu is the most expensive aromatic material in the world, because the price of the best quality agarwood in the international market can produce around 2 kg per stick for 58 million.
Hunting for agarwood in natural forests is increasing due to the high selling price, which threatens the sustainability of agarwood. This led to the 1994 Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) establishing the genus Aquilaria spp. Dan Grynops sp. It is included in Appendix II of CITES, meaning that trade is limited due to the shrinking population due to hunting in natural forests.
The development of agarwood farming and the process of inoculation of trees by applying the technology found by the Center for Research and Development of Forests and Nature Conservation (P3HKA), one agarwood tree aged 4-5 years after being induced can produce a minimum of 2 kg of agarwood sapwood within a period of 1-3 years (Infokita , 2007).
The results of chemical analysis, Gaharu (Aquilaria malaccensis L.) originating from Kalimantan contains the main component of agarwood oil in the form of chromone. This chromone causes the fragrant smell of agarwood when burned. (Wiyono, 1998). Agarwood contains resin that is not exuded but is deposited in the woody tissues of trees.
Chemically, resin is a mixture of resin acids, resin alcohols, resinotanol, esters and resins (Ismanto, 2016). Along with the development of science and technology, agarwood is not only marketed as a raw material product, but can be marketed as a processed product in the form of agarwood oil.
Agarwood oil is an essential oil obtained through a distillation process (distillation). The method of distillation to obtain agarwood oil can be done by a distillation system or a steam pressure system. This essential oil is commonly used in the manufacture of perfumes and cosmetics.
All classes of gaharu products can be refined by oil, however, to get good agarwood oil, most of the gaharu products used are kendeng. Therefore, the diversification of kemedangan products has the potential to be developed, especially in kemedangan-producing areas (Humairo, 2010).
The quality of agarwood is determined by the resin content contained in it, the higher the resin content, the better the quality.
As is well known, gaharu is generally grouped into three groups, namely sapwood, kemedangan, and ash. The quality of gaharu oil produced from the sapwood type will be much better than the kemedengan class. The kemedengan grade is cheap and lightweight, and the chemical components of the kemedengan are high priced.
While the type of gaharu in the ash class is a mixture of the results of cleaning gaharu quality sapwood and kemedangan (Pasaribu., et al, 2015).
The layout of the gaharu type in the distillation process should use three types of gaharu, namely sapwood, kemedengan and ash.
If only using low-quality gaharu types, the productivity will be low, so the process becomes uneconomical. Therefore, in the process of distilling agarwood oil in a distilled kettle, several qualities must be used, namely sapwood, kemedengan, and ash.
The quality of the type of agarwood can affect the volume of oil produced in the process of refining agarwood oil. (Humairo., et al. 2010).
The quality of agarwood oil is influenced by several factors, namely: The basic material, gaharu wood always has different oil or resin content, The origin of the wood, whether natural or natural from the forest or cultivated agarwood also affects the quality of the oil produced, The character of agarwood aroma produced from one species with other species has differences, In addition, the quality of agarwood oil is related to the refining process such as the preparation of basic ingredients including what and how long the process of soaking the basic ingredients before being distilled, distillation equipment, distillation technique methods, distillation technology, the amount of temperature used in the refining process (Mulyanto, 2018).
1.1. Agarwood Tree Botany
Gaharu-producing plants botanically have the following classification structure:
Kingdom : Plantae
Phylum: Spermatophyta
Sub-phylum: Angiosperms
Class : Dycotyledon
Sub-class : Archichlamydae
Family: Thymeleaceae
Genus : Aquilaria sp.
Species: Aquilaria malaccensis L. (Sumarna, 2014).
In Indonesia, the distribution area of gaharu-producing plants can be found in various forest ecosystems. Starting from lowland forests, mountains, and peat swamp forests. Agarwood-producing plants are classified as pioneer plants and have ecophysiological properties in the vegetative growth phase until the age of three years.
This plant also cannot stand direct sunlight (semi-tolerant). Thus, naturally, most of the gaharu-producing tree species in the early stages of growth require shade as protection from the sun (Sumarna, 2014).
Land suitable for the development of agarwood cultivation needs to pay attention to the ecological parameters of the place where it grows, namely temperature, humidity, climate, soil structure, and soil texture where the agarwood will be developed. Development in different land conditions and climatic environments requires a suitability test stage for growing places and an approach to ecological parameters. This can be applied with appropriate treatment and action and fulfills the equation of ecological parameters and conditions of the land where it grows (Sumarna, 2002).
According to (Sumarna, 2002) the types and distribution of gaharu-producing plants found in Indonesia consist of the Thymeleaceae, Leguminoceae, and Euforbiaceae families. Plant species that have the potential to produce agarwood, it is necessary to know a general description of their morphological and ecological characteristics.
1.2. Agarwood Formation Process
The process of natural formation of agarwood generally occurs due to injured trees and infected with disease. The mechanism of the physiological process of gaharu formation starts from the entry of disease microbes into the wood tissue. To maintain its life, physiologically microbes will utilize the fluid of stem vascular tissue cells.
Gradually the loss of cell fluid will reduce the performance of the vascular network in delivering nutrients to the leaves (photosynthesis). Cells whose contents have been consumed by disease microbes will form a collection of dead cells in the vascular tissue. As a result, the function of the leaves in the photosynthesis process will stop so that the leaves turn yellow and fall off which eventually the plant will die. Physically the branches and twigs dries up, the bark breaks, and is easy to peel. This condition is a biological characteristic of trees that have produced agarwood (Parman and T.Mulyaningsih, 2001).
Several types of gaharu-forming microbial disease, namely,
Fusarium sp.,
Libertella sp.,
Trichoderma sp.,
Scytalidium sp.
By knowing several types of disease microbes, it is very possible to inoculate appropriate disease seeds on the trunk and branches of the tree so that artificial agarwood is obtained (Sumarna, 2002).
Gaharu trees can produce gaharu resin by transmission technique using fungi that cause the formation of gaharu resin. Naturally the formation of this agarwood can occur through infection due to injury or broken branches. But this does not always happen because it is influenced by environmental factors.
Therefore, to accelerate and increase the formation of agarwood, a deliberate transmission technique is needed (Surata, 2001). According to (Susilo, 2003), to form agarwood artificially, namely by using simple technology or advanced technology to minimize the negative impact of Massive cutting of agarwood-producing wood in natural forests, such methods include:
a. Injuring the Trunk of a Tree
Gaharu-producing trees that are 2-3 years old are injured on the bark. This action can be done 1-2 months. Or it can also injure the branches or twigs of the tree. From this method, it is hoped that the entry of microorganisms into the injured part of the stem, branch, twig, causes the formation of agarwood in that part.
b. Microorganism Injection
Look for gaharu-producing trees that already have a trunk diameter of 10 cm or more. Drill the rods in several places that are not close together for 2-3 cm. then insert the Fusarium mushroom into the hole made earlier and the mouth of the hole is closed with wax. After that observe the possibility of agarwood on the tree trunk.
c. Formulation Injection
The injection of formulation into the hole (that has been made in the tree trunk).
d. Inserting Agarwood
Small pieces of gaharu obtained from other trees are inserted into holes drilled into the agarwood-producing species. The remaining holes are then covered with wax. This piece of agarwood acts as an inoculant on healthy stems.
1.3. Types of Agarwood
Gaharu is a type of wood with various distinctive shapes and colors, and contains levels of mastic, derived from trees or parts of gaharu-producing trees that grow naturally and have died, as a result of an infection process that occurs either naturally or artificially on the tree. and generally occurs in Aquilaria sp. (Susilo, 2003).
In terms, agarwood ash is agarwood powder which is produced from the grinding or crushing process of gaharu wood left over from cleaning or scraping.
Damar gaharu is a type of solid and soft sap, which comes from trees or parts of gaharu-producing trees, with a strong aroma, characterized by its black or blackish color alternating with brown.
Gaharu sapwood is wood that comes from trees or parts of gaharu-producing trees, contains mastic with a rather strong aroma, characterized by its black or blackish color alternating with brown.
Kemedengan is wood that comes from gaharu-producing trees, contains mastic with a weak aroma, characterized by its grayish-white to brownish color, coarse fibers, and soft wood.
Agarwood is grouped into 3 (three) sortimen, namely:
Sapwood type of Agarwood,
Kemedeng type of Agarwood,
Agarwood type of Agarwood.
Gubal gaharu and Kemedengan are obtained by cutting down dead agarwood-producing trees, as a result of the accumulation of mastic caused by infection in these trees. The tree that has been cut down is then cleaned and cut into pieces or split into pieces, then the parts of the wood that contain accumulated mastic are selected, and hereinafter referred to as gaharu wood.
The pieces of agarwood are sorted according to the resin content, color and shape. In order for the color of the pieces of agarwood to be more visible, the pieces of agarwood are cleaned by scraping. The pieces of gaharu wood left over from cutting and cleaning or scraping are collected again to be used as material for making agarwood ash (Susilo, 2003).
1.4. Agarwood Oil Processing
Agarwood oil is an essential oil obtained through a distillation process (distillation). This essential oil is commonly used in the manufacture of perfumes and cosmetics (Sumarna, 2002).
Distillation is a process of isolating essential oils from their raw materials with the help of water vapor, where oil and water do not mix. Due to the nature of such essential oils, the oil content in the condensate (a mixture of water and oil coming out of the condenser) is different for each type of essential oil (Ma’mun, 2012).
According to (Ma’mun, 2012), there are three ways of refining essential oils that are commonly used as follows:
Distillation by boiling (water distillation) where the material in the kettle is immersed with water.
Distillation by steam (water and steam distillation) in this system the material is placed on a filter with a certain distance above the surface of the water in a distilled kettle.
Distillation with direct steam where the material is in a distilled kettle and the steam coming from the boiler (boiler) is flowed under a certain pressure at the bottom of the still boiler.
According to (Humairo, 2010), the process of refining agarwood oil by steaming goes through three stages, namely:
Agarwood which will be used as raw material is prepared with several different types of agarwood.
The amount of raw material is adjusted to the capacity of the equipment in the form of a refining kettle.
Enter the raw material of agarwood into the steamed kettle.
Flow water into the material kettle.
Also drain water into the cooling kettle and place the water-oil separator vessel at the cooling end.
Heat the water in the kettle with fire from charcoal, wood, gas, kerosene, or diesel.
Direct steam distillation uses saturated steam or overheated steam with a pressure of more than 1 atmosphere generated from the boiler and flows through a perforated pipe located under the material in the distilled boiler.
Boiler serves to supply steam with a certain pressure into the distilled boiler. In large-scale distillation, the steam pressure in the boiler usually ranges from 4-8 kg/cm2.
2. METHOD
This research is a descriptive research. The data obtained were analyzed using quantitative analysis.
The sampling technique used in this study was the determination of agarwood used with three types of agarwood, namely Aquilaria malaccensis L. with kemedengan type, Aquilaria malaccensis L. with sapwood type.
2.1. Sampling Technique
The sampling technique used in this research is purposive sampling, which is the determination of the agarwood used, namely the sapwood and kemedengan types, which are the raw materials for the agarwood oil refining process.
The placement of the type of agarwood used was two levels of difference, namely Gubal as much as 7 kg and Kemedengan as much as 7 kg for one distillation process, then analyzed the volume of agarwood oil produced in each of the different types of agarwood.
2.2. Data collection technique
Preparation Stage
At the preparatory stage, the researcher will conduct a site survey to determine the condition of the home industry which is located on Jalan Gerilya Samarinda and to know firsthand the tools used in the distillation process.
Tools and Materials
a. Tool
The tools used in this research are a simple boiler, condenser, water reservoir, heating stove, oil catcher tube, titration flask and oil separator funnel.
b. Materials
The material used in this research is agarwood (Aquilaria malacensis L.) which has been in the form of shavings with different qualities, namely, sapwood, Kemedengan, and Ash types, with a fixed number of doses for one distillation process, namely:
sapwood as much as 7 kg,
Kemedeng as much as 7 kg, and
Ash as much as 7 kg
Implementation Stage
Prepare agarwood in the form of shavings, namely sapwood, Kemendengan, and Ash types.
The agarwood used is air-dried so that the water content in the material is reduced.
Enter the water at the limit of the existing nest in the kettle with a boiler capacity of 7 kg. Then put the agarwood into a well-arranged kettle with the difference between each type of agarwood, namely Gubal, Kemedengan, and Ash with a fixed dose of 7 kg of Gubal, 7 kg of Kemedengan, and 7 kg of Ash for one distillation process.
Then cover the kettle with the lid and connect it to the condenser then tighten the bolts on the kettle so that the connection to the condenser remains connected during the distillation process.
After the ingredients are put into the kettle, the fire on the heating stove can be turned on for the steaming process for 72 hours for one distillation process.
The completion stage is the process of titrating oil and water by separating the oil using a separatory funnel.
Place the separatory funnel in the titration flask, then open the tap on the separator funnel slowly so that the remaining distillate water enters the titration flask and the distilled oil remains accommodated in the separator funnel.
Then put the oil in the oil reservoir bottle.
After the oil is obtained, the volume of gaharu oil produced is analyzed for the different types of agarwood in the distillation process carried out in the Home Industry.
3. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
This study used two types of agarwood, namely Aquilaria malaccensis L. with kemedengan type and Aquilaria malaccensis L. with sapwood type using a fixed dose of 7 kg. from each type of agarwood used, for one distillation process, then analyzed the volume of agarwood oil produced for each different type of agarwood in the process of refining agarwood oil.
The results of the analysis of the volume of agarwood oil in the distillation process obtained differences in the yield of agarwood oil. The difference in the volume of oil produced from each type is Aquilaria malaccensis L. with the kemedengan type as much as 3.5 g. Aquilaria malaccensis L. with sapwood type as much as 11.1 g (Table 3.1).
The different types of agarwood used in the refining process can affect the volume of agarwood oil produced from each type of agarwood. The texture of the raw materials used and the amount of sap or resin contained in the wood itself.
The oil produced in the refining process using Aquilaria malaccensis L. kemedengan type of raw material is 3.5 g. The type of kemedengan wood used contains mastic with a weak aroma when burned and has a brownish white wood color.
According to Susilo (2003) kemedengan is wood derived from gaharu-producing trees, which contain mastic with a weak aroma, characterized by a grayish-white to brownish color, coarse fibers and a soft wood texture. Meanwhile, the result of distillation of agarwood from Aquilaria malaccensis L. with sapwood type is 11.1 grams.
The type of sapwood is wood that comes from trees or parts of gaharu-producing trees, contains mastic with a rather strong aroma, is characterized by its black or black color alternating with brown and has dense fibers.
The difference in the volume of agarwood oil produced in the distillation process is influenced by the quality of the agarwood used in the distillation process.
Agree with Pasaribu (2015) which states that the quality of agarwood is determined by the resin content contained in it, the higher the resin content the better the quality and the more oil content contained in the wood. The sap or resin can be characterized by a distinctive aroma that is emitted from the wood when it is burned and can also be marked with a black alternating brown color found on agarwood shavings.
Gaharu wood of various types is obtained from gaharu-producing trees that have died, as a result of the accumulation of mastic caused by infection in these trees. Trees that have been cut down are then cleaned and cut into pieces or split apart, then the parts of the wood that contain accumulated mastic are selected, and hereinafter referred to as agarwood.
According to Sumarna (2002) the pieces of agarwood are sorted according to the resin content, color and shape. In order for the color of the pieces of agarwood to be more visible, the pieces of agarwood are cleaned by scraping. The pieces of gaharu wood left over from cutting and cleaning or scraping are collected again to be used as material for making agarwood ash.
4. CONCLUSION
The volume of agarwood oil produced in the distillation process is influenced by the difference in the agarwood used.
Gaharu wood from the distillation process that produces the most volume is the type of Aquilaria malaccensis L. type of sapwood.
The suggestions that the author can give are as follows: To distill agarwood oil, it is better to use gaharu type from the sapwood type because this type has the highest resin content and volume.
Researcher : Herliani (Biology Education Study Program, FKIP. Mulawarman University)