Recent Research Advances in Essential Oils: From Green Extraction and Synthesis to Sustainable Applications and Utilization

Dear Colleagues,

Plant natural products or secondary metabolites include essential (volatile) oils (EOs). The EO components are produced by plants in order to protect them from pathogenic bacteria, fungi and viruses, as well as to repel herbivores and act as insecticides against herbivorous insects. The role of EOs as allelochemicals determines their pronounced biological activity.

Interest in EOs is increasing, as they are economically important, and are preferred by consumers as flavor and fragrance materials over synthetic chemicals. EO utilization is expanding rapidly in different areas such as alternatives to synthetic plant hormones and growth regulators, as biopesticides, as agents to reduce methane production in ruminant animals and overall anthropogenic greenhouse production, and the development of new drugs and products. This Special Issue will provide some of the recent knowledge and discoveries in the area of EO production, extraction, phytochemistry, and utilization. Consumer preferences towards natural products vs synthetics are driving the production and utilization of EOs. In the last decade, another trend, 'ethical consumerism', has expanded in scope and scale and has become mainstream. This originally environmentally-related behavior now encompasses issues of human health, animal welfare, human rights, country of origin, fair trade, and others. This is a way for consumers to try to avoid corporate practices of which they disapprove, through their choice of various products. Consumers are also willing to absorb the price of more natural and ethically-produced goods. 

Global production and trade in EOs as flavors and fragrances in foods and beverages, as fragrances in household products, and for aromatherapy have made many of these materials widely available at modest cost. The exemption of certain EOs and their major constituents from registration by the US EPA facilitated their commercialization as pesticides, and the use of such products has now expanded into Latin America and the EU. Prolific research on the use of EOs as alternatives to plant growth hormones and pesticides should lead to the use of many such oils from various sources and regions in years to come.

This Special Issue will focus on “Recent advances in EOs: From green extraction and synthesis to sustainable applications and utilization”.

Dr. Valtcho Jeliazkov
Dr. Murray Isman
Prof. Dr. Farid Chemat
Prof. Dr. Vassya Bankova
Prof. Dr. Niko Radulović
Guest Editors

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