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Published on: December 5, 2025
Separation of Volatile Metabolites from the Leaf-Derived Essential Oil of Piper mollicomum Kunth (Piperaceae) by
André M Marques1, Ana Clarissa C Peixoto2, D William Provance3
1Laboratório de Produtos Naturais, PN3, FarManguinhos, FIOCRUZ, 21045-900 Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. andrefarmaciarj@yahoo.com.br.
Abstract:
The technique of high-speed countercurrent chromatography was applied to the isolation of compounds in essential oil derived from the leaves of Piper mollicomum species. Plant leaves (200.0 g) were submitted to hydrodistillation in a modified Clevenger apparatus. The resulting crude leaf essential oil was analyzed by gas chromatography with flame ionization detector (GC-FID) and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) to determine the profile of the components. The purified fractions were composed of monoterpenes and sesquiterpenes such as camphor (85.0 mg at 98.5% purity), (E)-nerolidol (100.0 mg at 92.8% purity), and camphene (150.0 mg at 82.0% purity). A minor component of the essential oil, bornyl acetate (16.2 mg at 91.2% purity) was also isolated in the one-step separation protocol in 2 h. The countercurrent chromatography technique proved to be a fast and efficient method for the separation of volatile metabolites that conserved the solvent while delivering various fractions of high purity.
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