Chemical Composition and Biological Activities of Essential Oils of Phagnalon sordidum (L.) Rchb. (Asteraceae) from Algeria

The essential oil constituents of aerial parts of Phagnalon sordidum (L.) Rchb. were analyzed by a combination of capillary gas chromatographic-flame ionization detector (GC-FID) and chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS). A total of 125 constituents comprising 97.6 % of the total oil were identified. The volatile fraction was characterized by monoterpene hydrocarbons (51.4 %), oxygenated monoterpenes (10.4 %), sesquiterpene hydrocarbons (18.0 %), oxygenated sesquiterpenes (6.0 %) and non-terpenic components (11.8 %). The predominant constituents identified were β-pinene (26.0 %), (E)-β-caryophyllene (10.0 %), limonene (8.5 %), myrcene (4.7 %), decanal (4.5 %), thymol (3.9 %), germacrene-D (3.8 %), and p-cymene (3.4 %). The antimicrobial activities of the essential oil evaluated against eleven bacteria and Staphylococcus aureus, Klebsiella pneumoniae and Salmonella typhimurium were the most susceptible microorganisms with a minimum inhibitory concentrations (MICs) 0.01, 0.04, 0.04 mg/mL respectively. Additionally, the essential oil showed moderate radical scavenging and electron donating activity

Detection of Algerian Honey Adulteration by Raman Spectroscopy and Chemometrics Methods

Honey is one of the most popular foods in Algeria. This study, Raman spectroscopy combined with chemometrics methods: - principal component analysis (PCA), - hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA) was used to achieve the identification and detection of pure and adulterated honeys. Thus, 16 samples of authentic Algerian honey samples taken in different geographical locations from west and south-west of Algeria and 72 of adulterated samples were each mixed with authentic honey samples in the following ratios: 1: 20 (5%), 1:10 (10%), 1:5 (20%), 1:3 (30%), 1:2.5 (40%) and 1:2 (50%) and fructose, glucose, sucrose and syrup were analyzed. PCA and HCA were successfully used to process spectral data for discrimination of pure honey and adulterated honey, so we showed a successful separation between pure and adulterated honey. We observed clearly three clusters (A: pure honeys, B: adulterated honeys, C: adulterants (Glucose (G), Fructose (F), sucrose (S)). Raman spectroscopy was efficient in discrimination of honey using PCA and HCA. The PC1-PC2 plane, which accounts for 98.34 % of total variance could be sufficient to distinguish authentic honeys. The proposed methods based on Raman spectra have important utility for food safety and quality control of honey products