Antioxidant activity of isolated compounds in non-volatile residue from orange essential oil.

There has been a growing interest in the food industry and in preventive medicine to search for «natural antioxidants». Therefore the objetive of this study was to evaluate the antioxidant activity of the non-volatile residue of essential orange oil in the oxidation of unrefined and freshly extracted olive oil. Essential orange oil was distilled to obtain a non-volatile residue and fracctionated on a Silica Gel 60 column. The antioxidant activity was determined by measuring peroxide value obtained after heating olive oil at 70 °C for 48 h. Six compounds were isolated and purified, four of these had antioxidant activity, α-tocopherol and three methoxylated flavones were identified using spectroscopic methods. This study confirmed that non-volatile fractions of essential orange oil contain natural antioxidants diferent from α-tocopherol.