Sunscreen and Antioxidant Potential of Myristicin in Nutmeg Essential Oils (Myristica fragrans)

objectives: Nutmeg is a native Indonesian plant which is widely exported in the form of nutmeg and nutmeg essential oil. Exploration of nutmeg essential oils content and its activities continues to be carried out. Nutmeg essential oil contained 8-11% of myristicin, and this compound has alkenylbenzenes and ether groups. The present study was designed to evaluate nutmeg essential oil, nutmeg essential oil without myristicin and myristicin in-vitro activity as UV-B protector and DPPH antioxidant agent by UV-Vis spectrophotometer. Nutmeg essential oil, nutmeg essential oil without myristicin and myristicin were identified by GC-Ms. Myristicin was isolated with fractional distillation at 423 K, 25 mmHg and identified the structure by MS, IR and H-NMR spectrometer. The result showed that myristicin is compound which is the most contributed in nutmeg essential for UV-B protection, it has shown with myristicin give better SPF value than nutmeg essential oil, which is 19.44 to 4.98, and nutmeg essential oil without myristicin give 0,71, similarly to antioxidant activity, myristicin is the main compound that causes antioxidant effects in nutmeg essential oil, it's indicated by the IC50 value of myristicin which is better than nutmeg essential oil and nutmeg essential oil without myristicin, which is 189; 3,181 and 33,254 ppm respectively.