ABSTRACT
Citrus essential oils obtained from the peel of fruit are used in the food and perfume industries. They are mixtures of more than 200 components (Shaw, 1979), that can be grouped essentially into two fractions:
• a volatile fraction, that constitutes 85-99 per cent of the whole oil, and contains the monoterpenes and sesquiterpenes hydrocarbons and their oxygenated derivatives along with aliphatic aldehydes, alcohols and esters;
• a non volatile residue, that ranges from 1 per cent to 15 per cent of the whole oil, and contains hydrocarbons, fatty acids, sterols, carotenoids, waxes, coumarins, psoralens and flavanoids.
