Isolation and characterization of chemical compounds in methanolic extract of euphorbia hirtal

Abstract

Euphorbia hirta L. or locally known as 'gelang susu', 'ara tanah' and asthma weed is a species from family Euphorbiaceae. It has an economic important especially in medical usage such as antiasthma and antidiarrhoe. Preliminary tests were used to determine the chemical compounds such as alkaloid and flavonoid in this plant. In this study, three solvents were used in extraction process, which were hexane, chloroform and methanol. However, only the methanolic crude extract was then isolated and purified using chromatographic techniques such as thin layer chromatography (TLC) and column chromatography. Three fractions were purified individually from crude products and labeled as MTAl , MTA2 and MTA3. Each fraction were analyzed and characterized by using spectroscopic (IR and UV-Vis) and gas chromatography (GC-FID and GC-MS) techniques. The pure extracted compounds of MTAl and MTA2 were suggested as long chain aromatic compounds, while MT A3 was phenolic compound.