a solvent free in situ microwave hydro-distillation method for extraction of essential oil from fresh ginger root it presented. extraction was conducted in a te10n single-mode microwave cavity and variable power 2 kw generator operating at 2.45ghz. the main extracted components identified by gas chromatography (gc) were zingiberene, -curcumene, -sesquiphellandrene and -selinene. at energy inputs of 0.40 kwh/kg higher powers and shorter exposure times, crucially did not degrade the highly volatile components (-pinene and camphene) despite providing the highest essential oil yields. optimum processing conditions were found to be 1000w (0.40kwh/kg) for 5 min, for whole ginger root, where 0.35g oil/100g plant was obtained. this was compared to a yield of 0.2g/100g plant in 150 in using conventional hydro-distillation and 0.3g/100g plant in 90 min using a multi-mode microwave cavity-based hydro-distillation.