Abstract

QUANTITATIVE PHYTOCHEMICAL EVALUATION AND DETERMINATION OF MICRONUTRIENT CONTENTS OF THE ROOT EXTRACTS OF VERNONIA AMYGDALINA DELILE (ASTERACEAE)

*Onyeloni Sunday Onyemali and Etoh Akporuvwetere Prosper

ABSTRACT

Vernonia amygdalina belong to the family of Asteraceae and genus Vernonia known to have hypoglycemic and hypolipidemic properties. The study investigated phytochemical content and micronutrient in the root extract of V. amygdalina collected from a residential area in Abraka, Delta State, Nigeria. Qualitative phytochemical analysis reveals the presence of alkaloids, tannins, flavonoids, saponins in both the ethanolic and aqueous extract. The ethanolic extract shows higher contents of the studied phytochemicals (alkaloids 4.00%, tannins 22.02%, flavonoids 32.25% and saponins 80.00%) than the aqueous extract in the quantitative phytochemical determination (alkaloids 4.20%, tannins 20.41%, flavonoids 30.61%, saponins 75%). The micronutrient evaluation sing the Atomic Absorption Spectrometry (AAS) reveals the presence of zinc 67.80 mg/kg, copper 13.00 mg/kg, manganese 41.40 mg/kg, nickel 14.00 mg/kg and iron 52.60 mg/kg with cobalt not detected.

Keywords: Phytochemicals, Atomic absorption spectrometry, Medicinal plants, Bioactive.