The present work brought to light a new detailed study on the drying kinetics, also the impact of air-drying temperatures on the yield, the chemical composition, total phenol content, antioxidant, antidiabetic and antimicrobials activities of Pistacia lentiscus leaf essential oil. In this study, the drying kinetics were studied over a wide temperature range of 30-70 degrees C, to optimize drying parameters. The chemical profile revealed over 29 components of the essential oil via GC/Ms, with the major ones being alpha-pinene, (3-pinene, and D-limonene. Additionally, (3-myrcene and (3-cymene were found in abundance. The tested biologicals activities, demonstrated notable differences in IC50 values between fresh and dried samples, especially the (IC50) values of the DPPH test which were 53.2043 f 0.110 mu g/mL and 41.2887 f 0.250 mu g/mL for the fresh and dried samples at 70 degrees C respectively. Reversibility was observed between the two activities, the antioxidant activity improving with higher air-drying temperatures, while antidiabetic activity was negatively impacted. The investigated fungi and bacteria appear to be sensitive to all oil tested, particularly oil extracted from the leaf dried at 40 degrees C, with a zone of inhibition reached 32 f 0.3, 9.8 f 0.3, 18.02 f 0.1, 13.5 f 0.3 and 16.1 f 0.1 mm respectively for Rhodotorula glutinis, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Geotrichum candidum, Escherichia coli and Listeria monocytogenes. The drying process was mathematically modeled to clarify its behavior at different temperature ranges. The Midilli model effectively captured the drying curves within the temperature spectrum of 30-50 degrees C. However, as the temperature rises to 60 and 70 degrees C, the Two-Terms model emerged as a more fitting representation for the kinetic drying curves. The novelty of this study lies in the integration of drying kinetics, chemical composition, bioactivity and mathematical modelling to understand the impact of air-drying temperature on the Pistacia lentiscus leaf essential oil, which is essential for optimizing its therapeutic and industrial applications.
