Antibacterial Activity of Turmeric Essential Oil (Curcuma lnnga L.)

Turmeric or Curcuma longa was originated from Southeast Asia and highly consumed in India. Turmeric was known as medicinal plants as they can act as antibacterial and other function. In this research, the purpose of this study is to add information about antibacterial activity of turmeric oil from its rhizomes against Staphylococcus aureus and Escherichia coli because there has lack of study and source of references in Malaysia. These two microorganisms were selected based on their different grams of bacteria. The hydro distillation process was successfully conducted as they produce 1.7 ml of essential oil from lkg of turmeric rhizomes. The sample then was analyzed using FTIR and GC-MS analysis to determine the functional group and chemical composition. From the analysis, aromatic turmerone showing the highest percentage of area which is 37.94% compared to other compounds. Besides that, the sample was tested with the bacteria to observe the capability of sample as antibacterial agents by using disk-diffusion method. Two different amounts of essential oil was used which are l0µL and 20µL. The result shows that the turmeric oil is suitable to use as antibacterial after they show the inhibition zone inside the agar plate. S.aureus plate show better activity compared to E.c0li with showing 0.30cm of inhibition zone when using 20 µL of the sample. Lastly, more research and study about turmeric oil should be done to obtain more result of antibacterial activity.