Composition of Essential Oil of Artemisia macrocephala Jacque ex Besser. Growing in Mongolia

Abstract

The composition of the essential oils of the plant Artemisia macrocephala, grown in the central (aimak Arkhangai), northeastern (aimak Khentii) parts of Mongolia and compared with literature data are presented in this paper. Essential oil was obtained by the hydrodistillation method from dried aerial parts of plants. Gas chromatography (GC) analyses was performed on an Agilent Technologies 6890 gas chromatograph equipped with a quadrupole mass selective detector HP 5973 (MS) and an HP-5MS capillary column (30 m × 0.25 mm × 0.2 μm). Dark-blue essential oil was isolated from the aerial part of the plant. Chamazulene (7.4–16.1%) and α-bisabolol (3.4–20.7%) are the main components of the essential oil of A. macrocephala, which indicates the promise of using this species as a raw material for the isolation of essential oils with anti-inflammatory, bactericidal, and regenerative properties. Oils are characterized by a significant content (sum 20–28.9%) of derivatives of nerol (neryl-2-methylbutanoate, neryl-3-methylbutanoate, nerylpentanoat) and its isomer of geraniol (geranyl-2-methylbutanoate, geranyl-3-methylbutanoate). Six compounds (1,8-cineol, terpinen-4-ol, α-terpineol, β-selinene, T-cadinol, methylisocostate) are also constant for the studied samples. Comparison with the literature data shows that the compositions of essential oils of A. macrocephala of Mongolian and Russian (Siberian) flora are close.