Chemical constituents and antioxidant activity of the essential oil from aerial parts of Artemisia herba-alba grown in Tunisian semi-arid region

Abstract

Essential oils and their components are becoming increasingly popular as naturally occurring antioxidant agents. In this work, the composition of essential oil inArtemisia herba-alba from southwest Tunisia, obtained by hydrodistillation was determined by GC/MS. Eighteen compounds were identified with the main constituents namely, α-thujone (24.88%), germacrene D (14.48%), camphor (10.81%), 1,8-cineole (8.91%) and β-thujone (8.32%). The oil was screened for its antioxidant activity with 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) radical scavenging, β-carotene bleaching and reducing power assays. The essential oil of A. herba-albaexhibited a good antioxidant activity with all assays with dose dependent manner and can be attributed to its presence in the oil.   Key words: Artemisia herba alba, essential oil, chemical composition, antioxidant activity.