Extraction of agarwood resins from Walla patta

Agarwood resin, considered to be the most valuable plant product has been kept as a secret in most of the time by the distillers at homestead and industry levels in southeast Asian countries where the Aquilaria trees are grown. After the discovery of the presence of agarwood resins in Walla patta naturally growing in Sri Lanka, the Forest Management Group of University of Sri Jayewardenepura, headed by Dr. Upul Subasinghe started trials on agarwood resin extractions to support the industry and homestead level distillers that are expected to be formed in near future. 

The trials were conducted using a locally manufactured mini-distillation facility with varying water:agarwood ratio, distillation time and the particle size. The results proven that all the selected parameters above have significant impacts on both the oil content and quality which was tested by using GC-MS and GC-FID methods.

Now those results are being further tested using an imported agarwood distillation facililty of medium-scale from Thailand to identify the best energy type and the resin quality improvement methods.

Financial assistance for this project was rendered by the National Research Council and Sadaharitha Plantations Limited via Public-Private-Partnership Programme.