Abstract

The present study deals with the influence of the technological factor in relation to the technique used for the extraction of essential oil of thyme, its chemical composition, and in particular, the concentration of thymol as the principal chemo-typical active substance of this variety of thyme from the Moroccan High Atlas. The working protocol includes the extraction of the essential oil by three different methods (First method: Academic hydro-distillation; Second method: Training with water vapor using artisanal alembic; and Third method: Traditional hydro-distillation using artisanal alembic) and the comparative study of the individual thymol areas in the three spectrograms corresponding to the three essential oil samples and calculation of the differences. It emerges that the first method produces an essential oil very rich in thymol, followed by second method which produces an essential oil moderately concentrated in thymol, while the latter method produces an essential oil with very low concentration of thymol. It has been deduced that an important influence of the technological factor in relation to the type of the technique used for the extraction of the essential oil of thyme was exerted on the initial chemical composition, in particular, on the concentration of thymol.

Key words: Concentration, essential oil, Thymus satureioides, thymol.