Essential oils as a sustainable raw material for the preparation of products with higher value-added

Abstract

The use of renewable feedstocks, which may substitute those derived from petroleum, is currently a great challenge in the chemical and pharmaceutical industries. However, plant essential oils (EOs) that have been studied for their biological activities, such as antioxidant, antimicrobial, antifungal and antinociceptive are generally regarded as safe additives maintaining the microbiological stability of foods. EOs are a mixture of natural volatile compounds, that are predominantly formed during the secondary metabolism in plants and commonly concentrated in the leaves, bark or fruits of aromatic plants. They are complex mixtures composed mainly of terpenes (hydrocarbons or oxygenated compounds) and phenylpropanoids, which can be used as a source of raw materials for fine chemicals industry. In recent years, researchers and industries have been focusing on the major compounds of EOs in order to use them as solvents or as bio-based building blocks adding value to this material derived from biomass.