Adaptive Steam Temperature Regulation for Essential Oil Extraction Process

Essential oil is volatile and sensitive to excessive heat. Many studies had shown that temperature during extraction process had a great impact on the oil quality. Despite of that, until now there are very few research had been published on the control development of essential oil extraction system. Hence, this study was commenced particularly on the development of a regulated essential oil extraction system using self-tuning control. A self-tuning control was applied using pole-assignment method to regulate the steam temperature throughout the extraction process. Combination of controller poles in real and imaginary axis may influence the closed-loop response so that the steam can reach the set point faster but yet with minimal overshoot. Extensive analysis was done by simulation in order to understand the effect of the poles location and also the selection of sampling time over the closed-loop response. Outcome from the simulation was applied on the real process where the controller produced satisfactory result as expected. The controller was able to regulate the steam temperature at a desired level and maintained within ±2% output boundary.