Chemical composition of volatile oil of young and old rhizome of alpinia galanga plant / Mohamad Adil Iman Ishak

Volatile oil of Alpinia galanga species was extracted from young and old rhizome
using ethyl acetate and hexane solution as extraction solvent. Alpinia galanga is
one of the Zingiberaceae families in which it is very useful in treating disease and
antimicrobial activities. Alpinia galanga is widely used in cooking, foods
flavouring and perfumes production as it has nice and fragrance smell. Volatile
oil was extracted from the young and old rhizome of Alpinia galanga by using
hydro-distillation technique. The volatile oil obtained was extracted by using two
different solvent solutions for each rhizome which was ethyl acetate and hexane
solution. The volatile oil was then being analysed using Gas Chromatography
Mass Spectroscopy (GC-MS) instrument. (S)-I-(4-acetoxyphenyl) propyl acetate
compound was the main chemical constituent in the young rhizome volatile oil by
using both types of solvent but different in percentage of similarity index. In ethyl
acetate extraction solvent, this compound was detected in 95.3% of similarity
index while in hexane extraction solvent, the compound was detected to be 93.9%
of similarity index. In contrast, the main chemical compositions in the volatile oil
of old rhizome of Alpinia galanga was (I S,4R,5R)-1 ,3,3-trimethyl-2 oxabicyclo [
2.2.2] octan-5-yl acetate with 78.7% of similarity index for hexane
solvent extraction and 95.9% for ethyl acetate solvent extraction. The data showed
that ethyl acetate solvent had high efficiency in oil extraction compared to hexane
solvent. Meanwhile, old rhizome yielded high amount of volatile oil compared to
young rhizome of Alpinia galanga. Five new chemical constituents found in the
volatile from both type of rhizomes were isopentyl acetate, 1,3,3-Trimethyl-2 oxabicyclo[
2.2.2] oct-6-yl acetate, (S)-I-(4-Acetoxyphenyl) propyl acetate,
(IS,4R,5R)-1 ,3,3-Trimethyl-2-oxabicyclo[2.2.2] octan-5-01 and (2S,2'S)-2,2'Bis [
I,4,7, I0, 13-pentaoxacyclopentadecane] since these compounds were not
reported by any previous study.