S. MANDAL, SRIJIT BHATTACHARYA^#

Deptartment of Physics, Barasat Govt. College, Kolkata-700124, WB, India

Simultaneous UV-VIS and FTIR spectroscopy are utilized to study and compare the concentration of the pigments-chlrophylls and carotenoids and to understand different functional groups of five medicinal plants-namely Ocimum sanctum L. (Tulsi), Calotropis gigantean L. (Akanda), Paederia scandens (Gadali), Azadirachta indica L. (Neem) and Murraya koenigii L. (Curry) available in India domestically. The UV-VIS spectra of five medicinal plants show the signature of pigments chlorophyll a, b and carotenoids. The ratio of two types of chlorophyll is calculated in an uncommon way using the formulae of Lichtenhaler from the UV-VIS spectra and also directly by deconvoluting those spectra. The trend in both the cases corroborates each other, though the magnitude differs. The FTIR study of the samples show the presence of keto, alcohol, amino groups in aromatic and aliphatic components in fingerprint-like spectra. However, significant presence of aromatic nitro group is found in Paederia scandens and Ocimum sanctum L. Thus UV-VIS and FTIR are two cheap but highly powerful and easy-to-use tools to understand the phytochemical and polyphenolic compositions of medicinal plants for the betterment of herbal and alternative medicines.

Corresponding author’s e-mail: srijit.bha@gmail.com

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