Ecology, Environment and Conservation Paper

QUANTITATIVE AND QUALITATIVE SURVEY OF ESSENTIAL OIL EXTRACTION FROM FENNEL (FOENICOLUM VULGARE MILL.) BY ULTRASOUND ASSISTED DISTILLATION

Jalal Abbasian, Abdullah Hatamzadeh and Ali Dadar

Abstract

Fennel (Foenicolum vulgare Mill.) is a herbaceous perennial medicinal plant from Apiaceae family, which all the organs contains an essential oil. Some of the most important ingredients of fennel oil are: Anethole, Fenchone and Estragole. The use of ultrasound for the enhancement of extraction yield was advanced in the1950s. In order to investigate ultrasound effect on qualitative and quantitative characteristics of Foenicolum vulgare essential oil, seeds were grinded and mixed in distilled water, then exposed to ultrasound for 10, 20 and 45 minutes. A non-ultrasound treatment, was used as control. The essential oils obtained by steam distillation extraction and essential oil components were identified by GC-MS analysis. Results showed that the use of ultrasound in the oil extraction operations increased the amount of extracted oil significantly, but reduces some ingerdients such as Anethole, Fenchone and á-pinene. Other major Ingredients in the fennel essential oil, did not show significant changes.