Extraction of Agastache foeniculum L. essential oils using supercritical CO2 and their analysis using gas chromatographic - mass spectrometry

Abstract

Blue giant hyssop (Agastache foeniculum (Pursh Kuntze) is medicinal perennial plant. This ornamental plant is native to North America. In Lithuania is not yet widely spread. It is cultivated in botanical gardens and is valuable because is a fragrant, melliferous medicinal plant. Blue giant hyssop is not strict for soil and has a well developed system of the roots, so it is resistant to drought. This plant prefers a good soil and sunny places. It blooms from the middle of June to October. The flowers are violet or royal-blue. Agastache foeniculum raw material was prepared in Kaunas botanical garden of VMU during flowering season in 2010. In dry raw material is about 1.71 – 2.10  of essential oils, the basic components are D-limonene and estragol. The grass after cutting was spread in a thin layer in well ventilated room or in the room at 35 C temperature. The dried grass was separated from stems and stored in huckaback bags. The well dried grass has about of 12-14  moisture. The drying is one of the most important periods which influence the final quality of drug raw material. In this work the components of essential oils of Agastache foeniculum have been identified. The extracts of volatile oils of Agastache foeniculum were prepared by supercritical CO2 extraction. After the analysis the relative quantities of essential oils components as well as composition have been evaluated by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry detector. Investigations have showed that the quantities of essential oils components are different at the same and at the different conditions, when three repeated extractions are performed. The highest quantities of essential oils components were obtained using different pressures. During the first stage of extraction at 85 bar pressure the peak area of D-limonene was 78.6 ∙ 106 r.u., peak area of estragol 89 ∙ 106 r.u. [...]