Evaluation of the composition of L. seed oil extracted with supercritical CO.

Journal: Biotechnology reports (Amsterdam, Netherlands)
Published Date:

Abstract

Among the most important tropical fruit grown in the world today and in Brazil, papaya occupies a prominent place. Native to tropical America, papaya has spread to several regions of the world, and Brazil accounts for 12.74% of the world production, followed by Mexico, Nigeria and India. The culture reached a harvested area of 441,042 ha and production of 12,420,585 t worldwide. The largest interest in this fruit relies on its main constituent compounds, like vitamins A, B and C, alkaloids (carpaine and pseudocarpaine), proteolytic enzymes (papain and quimiopapain) and benzyl isothiocyanate, more known as BITC, which has anthelmintic activity. Because of that, the present work has as objective the evaluation of the efficiency and composition of the oil extracted from L. seeds with supercritical carbon dioxide. The experiments were performed in a unit containing mainly a high-pressure pump and a stainless steel extractor with 42 mL of volume. The sampling was performed at each 20 min until the saturation of the process. About 6.5 g of sample were fed for each experiment done at 40, 60 and 80 °C under the pressures of 100, 150 and 200 bar. Samples of the L. fruit were acquired in a popular market and free for personal use intended for the study. After collection, the seeds were crushed with the help of a pestle, and dried at 60 °C for 60 min. For each operational condition, the extraction curves were constructed relating cumulative mass of oil extracted in function of the operational time. The better efficiencies were found at 40 °C and 200 bar (1.33%) followed by 80 °C and 200 bar (2.56%). Gas chromatography and NMR analysis could identify an insecticide component (BITC) that enables new applications of this residue in pharmaceutical and chemical industries.

Authors

  • Pedro T W Barroso
    Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Escola de Química, Chemical Engineering Department, Brazil.
  • Pedro P de Carvalho
    Chemical Engineering Department, Technology Institute, Universidade Federal Rural do Rio de Janeiro, Seropédica, Rio de Janeiro 23897-000, Brazil.
  • Thiago B Rocha
    Chemical Engineering Department, Technology Institute, Universidade Federal Rural do Rio de Janeiro, Seropédica, Rio de Janeiro 23897-000, Brazil.
  • Fernando L P Pessoa
    Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Escola de Química, Chemical Engineering Department, Brazil.
  • Debora A Azevedo
    Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Instituto de Química, Ilha do Fundão, Rio de Janeiro, RJ 21941-909, Brazil.
  • Marisa F Mendes
    Chemical Engineering Department, Technology Institute, Universidade Federal Rural do Rio de Janeiro, Seropédica, Rio de Janeiro 23897-000, Brazil.

Keywords

No keywords available for this article.