Analysis of Essential Oil Composition of Some Selected Spices of Papua New Guinea.

Abstract

Some selected spices from Papua New Guinea were analyzed to determine the chemical compositions of their respective essentia/ oii contents. These included black and white pepper (P i pe r n ig ru m: Piperaceae); cardamom (Ellataria cardamomum: Zingiberaceae); ginger (Zingiber officinale: Zingiberaceae); patchouli (Pogostimon cablin: Lamiaceae); nutmeg (Myristica fragrans: Myristicaceae); and the leaf and stalk of lemon grass (Cymbopogon citratus' Poaceae). The essentia! oils were obtained by exhaustive hydro-distillation and ana/yzed by a combined gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) method. The results indicated that d-3-carene (34.0 %), iimonene (18.3 %>) andb-caryophyiiene (15.7 %) were the major components of black pepper (Piper nigrum), * d-3-carene (23.7 %), iimonene (23.7 %), b-caryophyiiene (17.6 %) andb-pinene (16.9 %>) were the major components of white pepper {Piper nigrum); 1,8-cineo/e (44.4 %) and a-terpinyi acetate (39.7 %>) were the major components of cardamom (Ellataria cardamomum)/ citrai (18.4 %), azingiberene (16.8 %) and camphene (11.2%) were the main constituents of ginger (Zingiber officinale)/ the patchouli alcohol (71.8 %) was the main constituent ofpatchouli (Pogostimon cablin)/ a-pinene (22.6 %), sabinene (15.8%) a-pinene (15.2 %) andmyristicin (13.2 %) were the main components of nutmeg (My ristica fragrans) andc\tra\ was the main component in the leaf(91.0 %) and sta/k (90.7 %) of lemon grass (Cymbopogon citratus).