Abstract:
Eugenol is the major bioactive constituent of cinnamon leaf essential oil (CLO). Among the various types of cinnamon, Cinnamomum zeylanicum has been found to contain 70-90% of eugenol. In this study, CLO was extracted from Cinnamomum zeylanicum leaves by hydrodistillation method. The extracted oil was analyzed using gas chromatography (GC) and found to contain 90% of eugenol as the major constituent. The eugenol present in the extracted oil was converted to methyl eugenol (ME) by the reaction of eugenolate generated using NaOH with dimethyl sulfate (DMS) as the alkylating agent (eugenol: DMS = 1:
