Chemical composition and antioxidant capacities of essential oils extracted from cornmint grown in Vietnam Available to Purchase

In recent days, the habit of using natural products has been getting more and more attention. Cornmint (Mentha arvensis L.) is a plant of high economic values due to its high content of menthol. Many countries have been growing and using mint as a spice and medicinal plant. The objective of the current study was to utilize the hydro-distillation at the pilot scale to increase the productivity compared to the laboratory systems. Besides, various parameters related to the extraction procedure, including material/water ratios, extraction temperature, and extraction duration were investigated to discover the most favorable operation condition. The results showed that the yield reached the highest value of 0.055 (mL/g) with the 5-cm material sizes (moisture of nearly 80%), material/water ratio of 1:7 (g/mL), extraction temperature of 130 °C, and extraction duration of 150 minutes. The chemical component analysis by gas chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry (GC-MS) exhibited that the obtained essential oil has high contents of menthol (80.075%) and L-menthone (7.519%) as the main constituents. For the assessment of some basic characteristics, the total phenolic content of essential oil was 0.7 mg GAE mL⁻¹. Furthermore, the DPPH (2,2-diphenyl-1-picryl-hydrazyl) and ABTS (2,2’-azinobis-(3-ethylbenzothiazoline-6-sulfonate)) radical scavenging activities of essential oil were 52.0% and 68.2% inhibition, respectively. This environmentally friendly pilot distillation could be used for the cornmint essential oil extraction and other similar materials to apply in food, pharmaceutical, and cosmetic industries.