Long pepper (Piper hispidinervium C. DC.) is a shrub found in the Amazon region, which supplies an essential oil rich in safrole. Normally, long pepper essential oil is commercialized in natura, which makes its processing a fundamental step in scientific and technological investigation. An important step of safrole commercialization is the separation of essential oil by, for example, a distillation process. In such a case it is important to know some thermodynamics parameters, such as energy of activation and enthalpy of vaporization. The present study was aimed at applying the kinetic of zero order evaporation process for the essential oil of P. hispidinervum by thermogravimetric analysis. The thermal analysis data were utilized to determine the energy of activation and enthalpy of vaporization, which resulted in the values 41.11 kJ.mol-1 and 43.73 kJ.mol-1, respectively.
Piper hispidinervium; Essential oil; Thermogravimetry
