Gas Chromatography Mass Spectrometric (GCMS) Analysis of Essential Oils of Medicinal Plants

Abstract

E ssential oil can be defined as a "product obtained from natural raw material, either by distillation with water and steam, or from the epicarp of citrus fruits by mechanical processing (Schnaubelt, 1999; ISO, 2014).Similarly, other names like essence, fragrant oil, volatile oil, etheric oil, aetheroleum or aromatic oil (Başer et al., 2007) have been used to describe essential oils.Essential oils can be obtained from various aromatic plants, most commonly grown in tropical and subtropical countries.They are obtained from various parts of the plants, such as seeds, buds, leaves, roots, fruits, rhizomes, barks and flowers.Oil cells, secretary ducts, cavities or in glandular hairs are some of the prominently explored cellular sources of essential oils in plants.Among many others, Apiaceal, Lauraceae, Rutaceae, Asteraceae, Pinaceae and Cupressaceae are the well know and famous families rich in essential oil.Some of the essential oils can be found in animals sources such as musk, sperm whale, civet and can be produced by microorganism.Hydrodistillation, steamdistillation, microwave-assisted distillation, solvent extraction, cold pressing and supercritical fluid extraction (Fadel et al., 2011; Asghari et al., 2012;Mohamadi et al., 2013) are some the applied techniques used for extraction of oils.Historically, the ancient Romans and Greeks in 1st century described the instrumental procedures for extraction (Guenther, 1948).Clear evidence which depicts the primitive form of distillation technology, which was in use in 400 BC can find in Taxila Museum, Pakistan (Sell, 2010).While In late 12th or early 13th century (1235-1311 AD), Arnald de Villanova compiled detailed information about the conventional hydrodistillation method (Sell, 2010).