Use of Hydrodistillation to Obtain and Fractionate Essential Oils Simultaneously

A simple method was developed to obtain and fractionate essential oil simultaneously by hydrodistillation. With this method it was possible to obtain essential oils from the leaves of Piper arboreum with the cadinol content ranging from 17.7 to 57.9%. In the essential oils from the leaves of P. aduncum was identified dillapiole with content ranging from 4.6 to 96.9%; and further, essential oil from P. marginatum with the presence of phenylpropanoids as minor compounds. The essential oils of the three Piper species varied in antimicrobial activity when fractionated, with P. marginatum oil exhibiting the lowest minimum inhibitory concentration at 19.5 µg mL-1 for the Pseudomonas aeruginosa bacterium. The method was efficient for the separation and concentration of chemical constituents of essential oils from the same plant, able to distinguish the different chemical profiles, both qualitatively and quantitatively.