Chemical Composition of Essential Oils of Released Black Cumin Varieties Grown in Ethiopia

Abstract

In Ethiopia black cumin seed and oil are used in folk medicine, as a bread flavoring and as a spices. The essential oil of black cumin seeds were extracted by hydro-distillation with Clevenger apparatus and the constituents of the three varieties were identified using GC/MS. The essential oil content of black cumin seeds were 0.80%, 0.4% and 0.6% for Eden, Dershy and Silengo respectively. The GC/MS results showed that seventy five, sixty six and sixty constituents were identified which constituting 99.98%, 99.27% and 99.17% in Eden, Dershy and Silengo. The main constituents of Ethiopian black cumin verities seeds essential oil as detected by GC/MS ware p-cymene (45.85 - 44.31% ), α-thujen (17.30 - 12.57%), trans-4-methoxy thujane (8.86 - 7.39%), 9,12-Octadecanoic acid, 9Z,Z)- (6.04% - 0.07%), β-pinene (4.08 - 3.04%), α- pinene (3.94 -2.68%), gamma-terpinene (3.83 - 2.50%), thymoquinone (3.53 - 2.13%), α-terpinene (3.00 – 0.00%), D-limonene (2.29 - 2.08%), phenol-2-methyl-5-(1-methylethyl) (2.56 -1.52%), cis-vaccenic acid (2.46 - 0.00%), longifolene (1.95 - 1.83%), the results confirms that main compounds are similar and variation in content to each varieties. The Ethiopian black cumin essential oil contain the required major secondary metabolite for pharmacological and other application. Keywords : Black cumin, Ethiopia, Essential oil, p-cymene,spices DOI: 10.7176/CMR/12-2-02 Publication date: February 29 th 2020