Characterization of Palm Fatty Acid Distillate of Different Oil Processing Industries of Pakistan.

Palm fatty acid distillate (PFAD) is cheap and valuable byproduct of edible oil processing industries. This study was designed to characterize PFAD collected from different local oil industries. AOCS methods were used for the determination of physicochemical parameters such as free fatty acid (FFA), saponification value (SV), iodine value (IV), peroxide value (PV) and moisture content. Fatty acid composition was analyzed using GC-MS. Moisture content of samples was found to be in the range between 0.06-7.50%, while FFA, SV, IV and PV were found to be 65.70-94.68%, 195.23-219.64 mg KOH/g, 38.49- 63.10 g I2/100 g, 1.09-16.50 meq/kg, respectively. Mean value of fatty acids in PFAD was found as 0.04% lauric, 0.42% myristic, 41.25% palmitic, 7.29% stearic, 41.58% oleic, 8.95 % linoleic, 0.04% eicosenoic, 0.27% arachidic, 0.07% docosanoic, and 0.05% tetracosanoic acid, respectively. Palmitic acid was found as dominant saturated fatty acid 38.63-45.30%, whereas oleic acid C18:1 n9 was major unsaturated fatty acid 33.54-44.05 % in PFAD.

Characteristics and Composition of a High Oil Yielding Castor Variety from Pakistan.

Keeping in view the versatile applications of castor oil in cosmetic, pharmaceutical and recently as renewable source, the present work is a step towards the commercialization of castor on large scale in Pakistan. The current study introduces a castor variety with high oil content. Initially seeds were physically examined for some physical parameters. Seed moisture, ash content and linear dimensions such as length, width and thickness were found to be 4.53%, 6.44%, 12.24 mm, 8.31 mm and 5.67 mm, respectively. For oil extraction, Soxhlet method was used which resulted in the high oil content 54.0%. For quality assessment of oil, physicochemical parameters were checked according to official standard AOCS methods and compared with ASTM specifications. The determined parameters were as follows; specific gravity 0.953 g/cm(-3), refractive index 1.431, viscosity 672.0 mPas.s, moisture content 0.32%, FFA 0.14%, IV 83.61 gI2/100 g, PV 2.25 meq/Kg and SV 186.0 mgKOH/g. Furthermore, fatty acid analysis of oil showed that, most abundant fatty acid was ricinoleic acid 94.59%, followed by palmitic 0.31%, linoleic 1.84%, oleic (n-9) 2.05%, oleic (n-10) 0.22%, stearic 0.45% and eicosenoic acid 0.53%. The detected fatty acids were compared with registered variety and varieties of other regions.