Author(s):

Chioma Nnennaya Chinaka, Kenneth Maduabuchi Ezealisiji and Rukevwe Elohor Akpofure

Abstract: Although the African herbal medicine have achieved unequivocal success as an ethno medicine yet they suffer many setbacks in their commercial value and global acceptance as a result of poor regulation and standardization. This study aims to characterize the phyto- chemical constituents present in the n-hexane and dichloromethane leaf extracts of Terminalia catappa using chromatographic and spectroscopic methods. The crude n-hexane and dichloromethane extracts were analyzed using ultra-violet spectroscopy (UV-2500PC series), Fourier Transform Infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) model 8400S and GC-MS (model –QP 2010 plus Spec). The identification of compounds was done using NIST Ver. 2.0 Year 2005 library. The biological activity are based on Dr Duke’s phytochemical and ethno-botanical databases. Peaks corresponding to chalcones, simple phenols, carotenoids and chlorophyll were observed in the UV-Visible spectroscopy. The FTIR revealed functional groups such as alkanes, alkenes, alcohols and ethers. The GC-MS revealed phyto-compounds such as n-Hexadecanoic acid, octadecanoic acid, and chloroacetic acid present in the dichloromethane extract and stearic acid, oleic acid, n-Heptadenoic acid, in the n-hexane extract. The presence of these phytochemicals especially long chain fatty acids and their percentage occurrence may provide proper identification and explain their usage in ethno-medicine.

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