Essential Oils

The work presented in this book is dealing with the essential oils. A total of 5 species from 5 genera of different families have been investigated for the yield, chemical composition, and antioxidant, cytotoxic, antimicrobial and anthelmintic activities of the essential oils. Efforts were also made to comprehend the effect of components of oil isolated by silica gel column chromatography. Among the essential oils analyzed, Myrtus communis offered the maximum essential oil yield (0.6%, v/w) while Picea smithiana had minimum (0.06% v/w). GC-MS analysis of the Picea smithiana essential oil revealed the presence of fifty constituents which mainly comprised monoterpene hydrocarbons (85.5%). The principal compounds of oil were delta-3-carene (26.0%), limonene (25.0%), -pinene (14.0%), and -pinene (6.6%). The HS-SPME analysis of the same plant material by GC and GC-MS revealed 47-constituents, representing 99.91% of total percentage of identified compounds, having limonene (16.76%), linalool (11.41%), camphene (9.20%) and -pinene (8.07%) in major concentration. Linalyl acetate (33.0%), linalool (25.0%), limonene (8.1%) -terpineol (5.9%) and geranyl acetate (5.9%) was the main constit