Comparative studies of essential oils from Zingiber Officinale grown in Nigeria

Abstract

Zingibe officinale Rosc. (Ginger) is widely used as a spice, and it has been used in folk medicine for thousands of years. Ginger is a very important spice for both culinary and medicinal uses. Aim: The study is aimed at the comparative analysis of the oils extracted from the fresh and the dried rhizomes of the plant.

Methodology: The oils were obtained by hydro-distillation distillation of the dried and fresh rhizomes and analyzed using GC-MS.

Result: The total components detected in the oil from fresh sample were 62 while in the oil from the dried sample were 68. The major compounds in the dried ginger sample were verbernol (7.76%), eucalyptol (7.52%), borneol (6.26) nerol (5.01%), α-terpineol (5.12), citral (3.82%), linalool (4.52%), fernesene (3.89%), camphene (3.05%) and curcumene (3.46%) while the major compounds in the fresh ginger sample were citral (6.09%), verbernol (4.90%), borneol (4.07%), eucalyptol (3.67%), linalool (3.64%), α-selinene (3.42%) and camphene (2.62%).

Discussion: There were more components detected in the dried than the fresh rhizomes and the percentage composition of the common components was more in the dried than the fresh samples. The compound αselinene was found in the oil from the fresh sample but was absent in the oil from the dried sample and nerol was present in the dried sample but absent in the fresh sample.

Keywords: Ginger, Oil, Hydro-distillation, GC-MS, Chemical composition, Nigeria.