Natural dye extraction from tropical almond (Terminalia catappa Linn) leaves and its characterization

Indonesia is a tropical country that is rich in natural resources, including various kinds of plants that can be used as natural dyes. Currently back to nature trend is causing the development of the use of natural dyes to increase. This encourages research to focus in natural dyes. Alternative raw materials used are fresh or dried tropical almond (Terminalia catappa Linn) leaves. The purpose of this study was to find out and utilize tropical almond leaves as a color producer and determine the influence of process variables, i.e. maceration time and initial condition of the leaves (fresh and dried). The extraction applied in this study is maceration method which the samples soaked in water with variations of time 2, 4, 6, 8, and 10 days. UV-Vis absorption and infrared spectra are used to analyze the extracted product. The extraction results produced the higher tannin levels for fresh leaf samples at 6 days immersion with tannin levels 12.0 g/L, while at 8 days immersion for dried samples with tannin levels of 21.8 g/L. The results of infrared spectrophotometer analysis are in accordance with previous studies to strengthen the exploitation of natural dyes extracted from T. catappa leaves.