Neroli essential oil is extracted from the fragrant blossoms of the bitter orange tree. It is one of the most widely used floral oils in perfumery. In this study chemical composition and in vitro antimicrobial and antioxidant activities of neroli oil are investigated. The essential oil of fresh Citrus aurantium L. Flowers (Neroli oil) cultivated in North East of Tunisia (Nabeul) were analyzed by GC-FID and GC-MS. About 33 compounds were identified, representing 99% of the total oil. Limonene (27.5%) was the main component followed by (E)-nerolidol (17.5%), alpha-terpineol (14%), alpha-terpinyl acetate (11.7%) and (E, E)-farnesol (8%). Antimicrobial activity was determined by Agar-well-diffusion method against 6 bacteria (3 Gram-positive and 3 Gram-negative), 2 yeasts and 3 fungi. Neroli oil exhibited a marked antibacterial activity especially against Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Moreover, Neroli oil exhibited a very strong antifungal activity compared with the standard antibiotic (Nystatin) as evidenced by their inhibition zones. Antioxidant activity determined by ABTS assay showed IC50 values of 672 mg L(-1). Finally, this study may be considered as the first report on the biological properties of this essential oil. The results of this study have provided a starting point for the investigations to exploit new natural substances present in the essential oil of C. aurantium L. flowers.
A 2 4 complete factorial design has been used to study the technological parameters that are responsible for the hydrodistillation process. After an appropriate choice of four critical variables, 16 experiments led to a mathematical model as a first degree polynomial presenting the response function (yield) in relation to the operating parameters. From the retained model, we were able to calculate the average response, the different effects and their interactions. The results showed that processing time, condensation flow and mass ratio plant material:water had significant effects (in absolute values) on myrtle essential oil yield (0.0350, -0.0421 and -0.0416, respectively), whereas granulometry presented a negligible effect (about -0.0084). The average essential oil yield extracted from 100 g myrtle leaves is 0.635%. Our study proved that experimental design methodology could efficiently be applied to characterize the analytical parameters affecting the hydrodistillation process and that it is an economical way of obtaining the maximum amount of information in a short period of time and with the smallest number of experiments.
Allantoin, a crystalline compound was isolated from the methanolic extract of Cleome viscosa and it was reported for first time from this plant. The structure of Allantoin was elucidated by single crystal XRD and it was further confirmed through FTIR and ESI-MS spectroscopy techniques. It was crystallized in monoclinic crystal system with the space group P2i/c. Electronic structure characterization of the isolated Allantoin was done through density functional theory calculation. The atomic charges, dipole moment, frontier molecular orbital and the electrostatic potential map of the molecule in the gaseous phase and in the active site have also been analyzed. The optimized geometry was used for molecular docking to identify the possible binding mode. Furthermore, the in vitro antibacterial activity of the isolated Allantoin against Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria was evaluated. Maximum Inhibitory Concentrations (MIC) of isolated Allantoin results showed 4 µg/mL for B. subtilis and 8 µg/mL for S. aureus, E. coli and K. pneumoniae.
Hydrodistillation of essential oils from leaves of myrtle, rosemary, and sour orange was experimentally studied and the extraction process was modeled. A mass balance was carried out over an assumed flat leave particle and the use of Fick's second law of diffusion led to the mass transfer equation. Its resolution required adequate boundary and initial conditions. The model considered the effect of the main processing parameters on the overall essential oil extraction efficiency as well as the determination of the optimum conditions. To assess the reliability of the model, yield curves for all studied conditions and variation of the oil composition with time were compared with the experimentally obtained results for each plant leave. The agreement seems to be reasonable, although some refining of the model is necessary by taking into account both the diffusion and reaction contributions.
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