Abstract

Thymol and menthol are naturally occurring plant derived compounds, which have excellent pharmaceutical and antimicrobial applications. The aim of this work was to evaluate the impact of biofield energy on physical and structural characteristics of thymol and menthol. The control and biofield treated compounds (thymol and menthol) were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC), Thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), and Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FT-IR). XRD study revealed increase in intensity of the XRD peaks of treated thymol, which was correlated to high crystallinity of the treated sample. The treated thymol showed significant increase in crystallite size by 50.01% as compared to control. However, the treated menthol did not show any significant change in crystallite size as compared to control. DSC of treated menthol showed minimal increase in melting temperature (45ºC) as compared to control (44ºC). The enthalpy (∆H) of both the treated compounds (thymol and menthol) was decreased as compared to control samples which could be due the high energy state of the powders. TGA analysis showed that thermal stability of treated thymol was increased as compared to control; though no change in thermal stability was noticed in treated menthol. FT-IR spectrum of treated thymol showed increase in wave number of –OH stretching vibration peak (14 cm-1) as compared to control. Whereas, the FT-IR spectrum of treated menthol showed appearance of new stretching vibration peaks in the region of 3200-3600 cm-1 which may be attributed to the presence of hydrogen bonding in the sample as compared to control. Overall, the result showed that biofield treatment has substantially changed the structural and physical properties of thymol and menthol.

Keywords: Thymol; Menthol; Biofield treatment; XRD; DSC; TGA; FT-IR