PHYSICOCHEMICAL STUDY OF MELALEUCA LEUCADENDRA ESSENTIAL OIL

Fatou Binetou Diop, Issa Samb* and Mohamed Lamine Gaye

ABSTRACT

Essential oils can be derived from both medicinal and aromatic plants. It is important to note that all plants have the ability to produce volatile substances, but only in trace amounts, with the exception of fragrant plants. The initial step in exploiting the chemical potential of aromatic plants is the extraction of specific compounds. Essential oils are obtained by various extraction methods, including hydro-distillation, the method chosen to extract our oil, which consists of immersing the raw material in a water bath and bringing the whole mixture to a boil. This study presents the extraction of essential oil from Melaleuca leucadendra leaves and the characterization of its chemical composition. A percentage of 1.004% was obtained after extraction and, to determine the chemical composition, the essential oil was analyzed by GC-MS and 40 chemical constituents were identified. The oil was mainly characterized by the presence of 1,8-cineole with 15.49%, followed by viridiflorol with 12.49%, trans-nerolidol with 10.96%, and alpha-terpineol with 9.77%.

Keywords: Melaleuca leucadendra, essential oils, characterization, GC-MS.