QUALITATIVE PHYTOCHEMICAL SCREENING AND PERCENTAGE YIELD OF MORINGA OLEIFERA LEAVES EXTRACT IN SOLVENTS OF DIFFERENT POLARITY

Plants have been known to be used in the treatment and management of diseases, and this is due to the presence of phytochemicals. Thus, the screening of plants qualitatively, has got the interest of researchers. Moringa Oleifera is a fast growing deciduous tree with its different plant parts commonly used in herbal medicine, also with good socio-economic and industrial values. In this study qualitative photochemical screening was carried on Moringa oleifera leaves extract to test for alkaloids, polyphenols, flavonoids, tannins and saponins. The results show the presence of all the tested compounds in the crude extract and the aqueous methanol fraction with the exception of tannins which was absent. In chloroform fraction, alkaloids, polyphenols, tannins and saponins were all present while flavonoids were found to be absent. Polyphenols, flavonoids and tannins were found to be present in the Ethylacetate fraction with exception of alkaloids and saponins which showed negative test. Finally from the result, only polyphenols showed negative test against the n-hexane fraction but all others were found to be present.