Effects of Gamma Radiation on Essential Oils: A Review

Abstract

Abstractγ-Radiation provides an effective alternative method to reduce or eliminate microbial contamination of medicinal herbs and other plant materials. However, a search in the literature is important to describe the effects of γ-radiation on the content and integrity of secondary metabolites from plants. The present work provides a review of the effects of γ-radiation on extraction yields and chemical composition of essential oils isolated from roots, rhizome and cortex, leaves, fruits, seeds, flowers, and whole plant. In addition, this review describes the effects of γ-radiation on terpenes. The informations in the present work may assist in research about essential oils and dose of γ-radiation that is able to biologically decontaminate without causing chemical changes in secondary metabolites. These reports in the literature can describe the behavior of many of these metabolites when subjected to various doses of radiation.

Decontamination of herbs and spices by gamma irradiation and low-energy electron beam treatments and influence on product characteristics upon storage

“…For the used spices, no influence of LEEB and gamma treatments on a variety of terpenoic compounds were determined, compared to the untreated reference. This is in accordance with studies investigating essential oil contents of gamma irradiated caraway seeds (Fatemi et al, 2011), oregano (Sádecká & Polovka, 2008), and rosemary (Araújo et al, 2017;Kirkin et al, 2014), which reported similar outcomes. However, it has to be mentioned that gamma irradiation may cause deterioration of a few essential oils for some spices, mostly for high applied doses >10 kGy (Araújo et al, 2017;Polovka & Suhaj, 2010a).…”

“…This is in accordance with studies investigating essential oil contents of gamma irradiated caraway seeds (Fatemi et al, 2011), oregano (Sádecká & Polovka, 2008), and rosemary (Araújo et al, 2017;Kirkin et al, 2014), which reported similar outcomes. However, it has to be mentioned that gamma irradiation may cause deterioration of a few essential oils for some spices, mostly for high applied doses >10 kGy (Araújo et al, 2017;Polovka & Suhaj, 2010a). In case of LEEB treatment, no such studies are published to date, but it could be shown that the quality of LEEB treated spices resembled the one of gamma irradiated samples.…”

The effect of non‐thermal processing on chemical constituents and antibacterial properties of turmeric rhizome volatile oil

“…The volatile oil which obtained from turmeric rhizomes has more amounts of active constituents and extraction yield in comparison to other parts of the plant (Araújo et al, 2017;Stanojević, Stanojević, Cvetković, & Danilović, 2015).…”

“…The volatile oil often could be extracted by hydrodistillation method from leaves, roots, flowers, and rhizomes. The volatile oil which obtained from turmeric rhizomes has more amounts of active constituents and extraction yield in comparison to other parts of the plant (Araújo et al, ; Stanojević, Stanojević, Cvetković, & Danilović, ).…”

Electrochemical Inhibition Studies on Carbon Steel in Acidic Medium via Friendly Anise Oil with Gamma-Irradiated Rays

“…To the best of our knowledge, little research is reported in literature about using irradiation of Anise oil (AO) with various doses of γ-rays (5 kGy and 15 kGy) as a corrosion inhibitor for CS in hydrochloric acid medium. This work aims to study the effect of AO as a green economic inhibitor before and after various doses of γ-rays on the inhibition of the corrosion rate of CS in 0.5 M hydrochloric acid solution [18,19,20]. In this respect, potentiodynamic polarization and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) methods were used to evaluate the electrochemical behavior of CS in an acid medium.…”