PHYTOCHEMICAL COMPARISON OF ALCOHOLIC EXTRACT OF FRESH AND DRY Curcuma longa

Biosciences

Curcuma longa commonly known as turmeric belongs to the family Zingiberaceae which is traditionally used as a spice in Indian food. It is said to have a wide range of biological activities like anticancer, antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory and free radical scavenging activity which is why it is used by Asian countries from ancient period. Phytochemical constituents are non-nutritive plant chemicals that have disease preventive properties. Isolation of bioactive compounds from the plants depends mainly upon the solvents which are used for extraction. In our study, we have used methanol and ethanol as solvents. These extracts were used for qualitative preliminary phytochemical analysis using standard chemical tests. Two types of samples namely dry and fresh sample was used for the study. The study reveals that the sample was more potent than the fresh sample which contained 16 phytochemicals compared to 21 among which the fresh sample contained only 14 bioactive compounds. The phytochemicals includes carbohydrates, proteins, fixed oils, Phlobatannins, alkaloids, flavonoids, gums and mucilage, phenols, glycosides, quinones, cardiac glycosides, steroids, xanthoproteins, steroids, Phytosterols, resins and coumarins.

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