Chemical Composition and Antioxidant Activity of the Fruit Essential Oil of Zizyphus lotus (L.) Desf. (Rhamnaceae)

The essential oil of the fruit of Zizyphus lotus (L.) Desf. belonging to the Rhamnaceae family, was obtained by steamdistillation and analyzed by GC-FID and GC-MS. 38 components were identified corresponding to 92% of the total oil.Fatty acids represented the major fraction (78.9%), followed by hydrocarbons (10.8%) while terpenic fraction constitutedonly 1.1% of the oil (?- and ?-eudesmol). The fatty acids fraction contained 23 saturated and unsaturated compounds (67.8and 11%, respectively) from C8 to C18. The major constituents are in decreasing order: ethyl hexadecanoate (12%), decanoicacid (11%), ethyl dodecanoate (9.4%), ethyl hexadec-9-enoate (7.9%), dodecanoic acid (6.5%), ethyl tetradecanoate (6.1%)and tetradecanoic acid (5%). Several studies described the fatty acid composition of different parts of Zizyphus species inthe fixed oil. Our study is the first report devoted to the chemical composition of the essential oil of the fruit of this species.The antioxidant property of this oil was evaluated using ?-carotene bleaching method.