Abstract

The antimicrobial activities of 10 essential oils extracted from various plant species were investigated and compared with the activities of 10 commercial antibiotics against 10 strains of bacteria using agar diffusion method.  Although, all the essential oils were active at concentration ranging from 0.5 to 1.5 mg/ml, their activities were more lower than the commercial antibiotics. However, being natural products the oils have been reported to be much safer than the antibiotics. Another advantage of the essential oils used in this study was their broad spectrum activities against gram positive and gram negative bacteria. The oils were analyzed by GC and GC-MS techniques in order to determine their active compounds.

Key words: Essential oils, antibiotics, GC-MS, antimicrobial activities.