Patchouli essential oil is an important raw material for the perfume and cosmetics industries, besides being used as a natural additive for food flavoring. Patchoulol and alpha-patchoulene are important compounds of patchouli essential oil, and their concentrations are directly proportional to the quality of the oil. Nowadays, the usual method employed to obtain patchouli essential oil is steam distillation; however, this causes thermal degradation of some oil compounds. In this study patchouli essential oil was extracted with supercritical carbon dioxide (scCO(2)) under different conditions of pressure (8.5 and 14 MPa) and temperature (40 and 50 degrees C) and also by steam distillation to compare the extraction methods. It was demonstrated that the extraction with supercritical carbon dioxide provided a higher yield and a better quality of patchouli essential oil. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.