Chemical composition and antioxidant potential of essential oil and menthol extract from Mint (Mentha piperita L.) growing in Macedonia

The chemical composition and antioxidant potential of essential oil and methanol extract from Macedonian Mentha Piperita L. was object of this study. The plant was organically produced from for the first time at south-east region of Macedonia (41º49`N, 21º 59`E) on the overlapping area of two climate types: the Mediterranean and Continental climate. The GC-FID and GC-MS analyses of essential oil indicated menthol and menthone as the most abundant compounds with 48.05 and 20.4% respectively. The other identified and quantified compounds such camphene, sabinene, p-cymene, β-pinene, limonene, cis-carvon, menthol acetate, piperitone and piperitone oxide were presented in the levels below 10%. The total phenolic compounds and total flavonoids were presented at higher level in methanol extract with abundance of 22.42±1.14 mg of gallic acid equivalent/g DM and 0.79±0.34 mg luteolin/g DM respectively, in comparison to essential oil with the levels of 10.12±0.89 mg galiic acid equivalent/g DM and 0.54±0.11 mg luteolin/g DM. The antioxidant potential measured by two radicals DPPH and ABTS indicated higher values for methanol extract in comparison to essential oil. Keywords: Mentha piperita L., essential oil, phenolic compounds, flavonoids, antioxidant potentia