THE STUDY OF ANTIOXIDANT ACTIVITY OF ETHANOL FRACTION FROM BLACK CUMIN (Nigella sativa, L.)

Black cumin (Nigella sativa, L.) is a plant with a lot of advantages. Many research have been conducted on this plant and most of them use nonpolar, such as petroleum ether and chloroform, as a solvent in extraction process. In this research, extraction of black cumin using ethanol was applied.Black cumin extraction started with maceration using ethanol p.a. and partition using chloroform (1:1). The antioxidant activity of ethanol fraction of black cumin was examined by DPPH method. To identify the composition, phytochemical screening, including test for terpenoid, flavonoid, saponin, tannin and alkaloid, was also conducted.The result showed that the scavenging ability on DPPH method was 22.483% with IC50 2743.59. Phytochemical screening on ethanol fraction showed the presence of flavonoid, tannin and alkaloid. The study concluded that polar fraction of black cumin has small antioxidant activity.