Q. Please tell us about yourself. What brought you to your current position?
I am an educator, an innovator and someone who has spent most of his life understanding the true nature of essential oils. Currently, I serve as the chief scientific officer and one of the owners of the Aromatic Plant Research Center, but the path here started a long time ago.
I completed two master’s degrees one in Nepal at Tribhuvan University focused on natural product chemistry and another in the United States at the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) centered on essential oils. My curiosity started building during my early studies when I first learned about biosynthetic pathways. Learning how nature builds molecules fascinated me. Organic chemistry quickly became my favorite subject.
During my PhD at UAH, I noticed a major problem in the essential oils (EO) industry. The market was full of adulterated material with almost no tools and testing methods precise enough to detect it. I dedicated my doctoral research to building scientific solutions to address the essential oil adulteration problem. Since then, I have spent more than fourteen years in the industry analyzing more than 300,000 essential oils from around the world and publishing more than 250 peer-reviewed papers. Mine is not a typical academic path: I followed the problems and bridged the gaps with my passion to get my current position.
Q. What is your favorite part of the work you’ve done in this field?
I enjoy creating practical solutions that truly help people in the EO industry the most. I have built many satellite labs around the world with small efficient setups that operate almost like the Uber model. You own the instrument, and we help run your lab. These labs have reduced operational costs and shorter turnaround times for many groups.
Scientifically, one contribution I take most pride in is discovering new synthetic markers and defining enantiomeric ratios in oils that had never been studied before. These markers have helped the industry detect adulteration more accurately. Every time I uncover a new pattern or solve a difficult problem for a supplier or manufacturer, it reminds me why I love this work.
Q. What is your talk about?
My talk focuses on authenticating essential oils using chiral enantiomeric ratios. Many oils pass the ISO standards and even carbon-14 tests, yet they fail from chirality perspective. Chiral GC-MS technique reveals a deeper layer of truth: it shows whether a molecule came from nature or from a synthetic process.
In the presentation, I explain why chirality matters, how enantiomeric ratios act as a fingerprint for natural products, and why this approach is becoming a crucial tool for transparency in the essential oil industry.
Q. Why do you think it’s important to discuss this topic with our audience?
Because the essential oil industry (flavor or fragrance) is in an authenticity crisis. Natural products have very specific enantiomeric ratios and chiral GC-MS allows us to verify those ratios with precision.
This topic is especially important for the flavor and fragrance industry where companies struggle daily to source pure materials. It is also valuable for academic researchers’ regulatory groups and anyone working in natural products or phytochemistry.
From my own surveys across countries, more than 80% of the essential oils in the market today show some level of adulteration, which is a major problem. Understanding chirality helps us detect issues that conventional methods miss and supports fairness, safety and quality across the industry.
Prabodh Satyal, PhD, is a global leader in essential oil authentication and chiral analysis, with over 300,000 oil samples, and has published more than 250 peer-reviewed research articles. His work focuses on enantiomeric profiling, mapping the biosynthetic origin, and uncovering sophisticated adulteration practices that evade traditional detection methods. Dr. Satyal’s analytical chemistry approach elevates essential oil quality standards across the industry.
Register today for free to attend Prabodh’s and other insightful webinars at the 2025 Outsource! Week.
