Chemical constituents of spearmint essential oil such as limoene,
carvone and 1, 8-cineole have provided impetus to the growth of spearmint oil market.
In Table 1, the majority compound present in the cumin essential oil was the cuminaldehyde (32.66%), for the dill the
carvone (34.89%), for the anise the trans-anethole (94.01%) and for the fennel the anethole (79.62%).
Caraway contains
carvone, limonene, pinene, phellandrene; the minerals, iron, sodium, potassium, phosphorus, zinc, calcium and magnesium.
30.0-55.0% menthol, maximum 4.0% pulegone, and maximum 1.0%
carvoneHowever, major variations were reported from Iran; while trans-anethole (38.3%), p-cymene (14.8%), limonene (4.3%) and
carvone (4.0%) were identified as major compounds in VO out of the 32 compounds by Nickavar et al.
In vitro studies showed that a wide range of essential oils such as
carvone might inhibit the growth of Gram-negative bacteria such as E.
Additionally, carvacrol was found to be the most bioactive compound in inhibiting human neutrophil elastase with a very low I[C.sub.50] value (12 [micro]M), followed by
carvone (I[C.sub.50] =14 [micro]M), p-Cymene (I[C.sub.50] =25 [micro]M), and TQ (I[C.sub.50] =30 [micro]M) (Kacem and Meraihi 2006).
The major components in the mint EO were linalool (58.51%),
carvone and compound 19 (total of 15.1%, compounds with overlapping curves on the chromatogram), and terpinen-4-ol (5.73%), constituted approximately 80% of the total mass of the oil.
While this plant contains approximately 30 different compounds, the main constituents are
carvone and limonene, which account for about 95% of the total (58).
Polarization curves of steel in 1.0 M HCl solution in the absence and presence of different concentrations of Camphor thiosemicarbazone (5),
Carvone thiosemicarbazone (6), and Pulegone thiosemicarbazone (7) are represented in Figure 2.
Terpenes are a group of
carvone derivatives, and the compound also possesses antifungal activities [14].
Pulegone (Figure 2) is naturally occurring and is classified as a ketone monoterpene, similarly to the way
carvone is.