COMPARATIVE STUDY BETWEEN GINGER, CINNAMON AND CHAMOMILE ESSENTIAL OILS (PHYSICAL PROPERTIES, CHEMICAL PROPERTIES AND CHEMICAL COMPOSITION)

Current study designed to compare three important essential oils (Ginger, cinnamon and chamomile) commonly used in Egypt. For this purpose, the essential oils were extracted from ginger rhizomes, cinnamon sticks and chamomile flowers by hydrodistillation; then the physical and chemical properties of these oils were estimated, as well as the identification of the active compounds by using GC-MS. Cinnamon oil recorded the highest values in both specific gravity and refractive index, while ginger oil was the highest in solubility in 80% ethanol. Chamomile oil recorded the highest value in acid number, while the ginger oil was the highest in both saponification number and ester number. GC-MS results identify 12 compounds in ginger oil, 6 compounds in cinnamon oil and 10 compounds in chamomile oil. On the other hand, zingiberene (33.2%) cinnamaldehyde (36.1%) and bisabolol oxide (46.71%) were the main major compounds in ginger oil, cinnamon oil and chamomile oil, respectively. In conclusion the obtained results found that, there are a big difference in physical and chemical properties between these essential oils, they also showed a very different chemical composition which leads to an expected difference in their biological effects.