Chemical constituents in volatile oil of zingiber officinale roscoe / Nur Nabilla Ismail

Zingiber officinale Roscoe is scientific name of ginger which came from family
Zingiberaceae. It produce essential oils that has high benefits to human especially
in traditional treatment which able to treat various kind of diseases such as
antibacterial, anti-inflammatory, anti-oxidant and gastrointestinal disorder.
Besides, it is also widely used in aromatherapy and as well as in flavouring food
and drink industries. In this study, the essential oils obtained by hydrodistillation
technique of the fresh and dried ginger rhizome and the chemical constituents
were analysed by using GC-MS. Moreover, different solvents which were
petroleum ether and chloroform used to extract compounds from ginger oils. The
fresh rhizome of Zingiber officinale Roscoe (ginger) were purchased from a
market in Bandar Jengka and dried in oven at 60 DC for one day. After the
extraction process, rotary evaporator was used to remove the solvents and then
ginger oils were obtained as a bright yellow liquid with distinctive aroma of
ginger. By using the GC-MS, chemical constituents of ginger essential oils were
identified. Several new chemical constituents were successfully found namely as
tumerone, curlone, selina-4,7-diol, aR-tumerone, 3-acetoxy-4-(1-hydroxy-lmethylethyl)-
l-methyl-cyclohexene, 3-Ethyl-2-hydroxy-2-cyclopenten-l-one, 3deoxy-
estradiol, oleic acid and cubebol. All these compounds are not yet reported
in any ginger essential oils studies. Most of the compounds were exist in dried
ginger essential oil from chloroform extraction. However, these new compounds
have their own role to act as anti-angiogenesis, antibacterial and anticancer. While
(E)-sesquisabinene hydrate, zingiberenol, a.-famesene, trans-nerolidol, neral, cis
farnesene, a.-curcumene, a.-cedrene, geranial, borneol, nerolidol and geraniol
were the common compounds found in previous studies. Fresh ginger rhizome
yields (0.14%) higher essential oils from chloroform extraction. Therefore,
findings from this work can be used for further study on biological activities by
other researchers such as anti-bacteria, anti-oxidant, anti-inflammatory and so on.