Impact of Storage Containers on Chemical Degradation and Antibacterial Activity of Lemongrass (Cymbopogon citratus L.) Essential Oil

Abstract

Essential oils are naturally occurring aromatic and volatile substances that are derived from plant materials. It is a complex mixture of volatile and non-volatile chemicals produced by secondary metabolism in aromatic plants. It is utilized as a flavor, fragrance as well as cosmetic and pharmaceutical industries due to their antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, and analgesic properties. Keeping this in mind, we chose lemongrass plant for our study, we have extracted essential oil by steam distillation method and chose different container for storage i.e. metal (Aluminum), Glass (Transparent) and plastic (High-density polyethylene) and stored up to one year for further studies. After GC-MS analysis, thirty-nine chemical components were observed, among all, citral was the major component. It was 66.51% in freshly distilled while 30.35%, 24.99%, 11.82% in one-year stored lemongrass essential oil in metal, glass and plastic containers respectively. For antibacterial studies we have taken freshly distilled and one-year old lemongrass oil in metal container, Kirby Bauer Disk Diffusion method was employed on four different bacterial strain, among them three were gram-negative (Enterococcus faecalis ATCC29212, E. coli ATCC25922, and Klebsiella 4151) and one was gram-positive (Staphylococcus 1564).