Content and Chemical Composition of Essential Oil from Cardamom (Elettaria cardamomum (L.) Maton)

This study was conducted to determine and compare the essential oil content and composition of eight samples of cardamom (Elettaria cardamomum).The yield of essential oils isolated by hydrodistillation from the dried fruits varied from 4 to 56 mL kg -1 .Chemical analysis by gas chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry (GC/MS) revealed the presence of 21-48 compounds accounting for 98.88-99.98% of the total essential oils.Alpha-terpinyl acetate was the most abundant compound in all samples (35.99-62.28%), followed by 1,8cineole (0.24-30.62 %), -terpineol (2.18-16.75%), linalool (0.81-7.25 %), and linalyl acetate (1.49-4.67 %).The radar plots easily distinguished cardamom samples.Multivariate principal component analysis (PCA) was used to evaluate the phytochemical diversity of the cardamom fruits.The results presented provide a first insight into the substantial differences in the yield and composition of the essential oil of commercially available cardamom fruits and underline the superior quality of the whole fruit compared to the powdered form.