Drying Induced Impact on Composition and Oil Quality of Rosemary Herb, <i>Rosmarinus Officinalis</i> Linn

Abstract

The natural drying of Rosmarinus officinalis Linn. herbs severely affects its volatile oil quality and yields, which is reported here for the first time. The oils obtained through hydrodistillation from fresh, one, two, and three-weeks dried herbs were analyzed by gas chromatography–mass spectroscopy (GC–MS) and gas chromatography–flame ionization detector (GC-FID), and the yields were 198 ± 3.45, 168.7 ± 5.11, and 97.8 ± 1.27 mg, respectively, as compared to the internal referral standard of 327 ± 5.91 mg yield of the one-week dried herbs’ oil. Camphor, the major constituent, significantly depleted from 20.96% to 13.84%, while bornyl acetate yields increased from 1.42% to 12.46% (p values p < 0.0001), again indicating major chemical changes during herbs’ dryings, affecting the free-radical scavenging capacity of these batches of oils obtained after different drying times.

Keywords

• <i>Rosmarinus officinalis</i>
• volatile oils
• natural drying
• antioxidant activity
• compositional ratio