DRYING EFFECT ON THE ISOLATION, CHARACTERIZATION AND ANTIOXIDANT POTENTIALS OF LEAF ESSENTIAL OILS OF Ocimum gratissimum HARVESTED AT 10:00am IN A DAY

摘要

Essential oils are volatile compounds found in special brittle secretory structures in plants, such asglands, they have several modes of actions as antioxidant, such as prevention of chain initiation and freeradical scavenging. is an herbaceous plant which belongs to the Labiatae familyused in the treatment of epilepsy, high fever, diarrhea, mental illness, management of the baby's cord, tokeep the wound surfaces sterile and in the treatment of fungal infections, cold and catarrh. In this study,the antioxidant activity of in both fresh and dry leave is accessed Pulverized freshleaves (500g) of harvested at 10:00am in a day were air dried for five consecutivedays and separately hydro-distilled for 3 hours. The oil yields range from 0.42-0.91 (w/w). Analysis ofthe oils using GC and GC-MS revealed the predominance of hydrocarbon sesquiterpenes(DPPH). The oils were active against DPPHregardless of the level of dryness. The most and least active oils were the oils of leaves dried for four days(95.68±1.40) and two days (41.91±2.42) at 20µl/ml and IC of 4.29µl/ml and 20.05µl/ml respectively.