Comparative Study of Antioxidant Activity of Extracts and Essential Oils Composition of Artemisia absinthium L. Prepared by Two Different Methods

Abstract

In this study, chemical compositions of the essential oils isolated from aerial parts of Artemisia absinthium L. by hydrodistillation (HD) and simultaneous steam distillation-solvent extraction (SDE) methods were compared quantitatively and qualitatively using GC-FID and GC-MS. β-Pinene, β-thujone and o-cymene were the major constituents in both cases but in different amounts. Antioxidant activities of various extracts from A. absinthuim were evaluated via DPPH radical scavenging, total phenolic content of the extracts were also evaluated using folin-ciocalteo reagent. Results reveal that although phenolic contents are not high significantly in this plant, water and ethanol extracts of this plant has considerable radical scavenging activity.

Key words:

• Artemisia absinthium
• essential oil
• SDE
• GC-MS
• antioxidant
• DPPH
• free-radical scavenging
• folin-ciocalteo
• total phenolics
• β-pinene
• β-thujone
• o-cymene

Acknowledgement

The authors thank Barij Essence Pharma-ceutical co. (Kashan-Iran) for collecting the plant and identifying the specimen.