Abstract
Aerial parts of Melissa officinalis were subjected to headspace (HS) and hydro-distillation (HD) techniques after drying, and then HS volatiles and the essential oils were analyzed by gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC-MS). Results of GC-MS analysis led to identification of 43 and 28 compounds in samples extracted by HD and HS methods, which represented 99.7% and 99.4% of the oils, respectively. Neral (22.1%), geranial (27.7%), (E)-caryophyllene (16.3%), germacerene D (5.1%), caryophyllene oxide (5.4%), and germacrene D-4-ol (2.5%) were identified as major components of essential oil extracted by HD method, and important constituents of HS components by HS techniques were neral (13.8%), geranial (18.2%), (E)-cCaryophyllene (45.0%), germacerene D (8.9%). (E)-caryophyllene (45.0%) was the first main compound in essential oil that was measured by HS method, but geranial (27.7%) was found as the highest using HD method. It could be concluded that more percentage of sesquiterpenes measured by HD method was due to the presence of water and more time of extraction in comparison with that of HS method. Therefore, HS could be the appropriate method for identifying lighter components and the HS technique is a new, rapid, simple and eco-friendly method for essential oil analysis of aromatic plants.
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