The lipid fraction of Opuntia ficus indica seeds was extracted and analyzed for its chemical and physical properties such as acid value, free fatty acid percentage (% FFA), iodine index, peroxide value, and saponification value as well as refractive index and density. The yield of seed oil was calculated as 11.75%. The acid and free fatty acid values indicated that the oil has a fairly low acidity. The triacylglycerols, fatty acids, sterols, and tocopherols were identified and their concentrations determined. The main TAGs were LLL (25.60%), OLL (21.53%), PLL (15.53%), and POL + SLL (12.73%). Linoleic acid (60.69%) was the dominant fatty acid, followed by oleic (21.42%) and palmitic (12.76%) acids, respectively. A high level of sterols making up 16.06 g/kg seed oil was present. The sterol marker, β-sitosterol, accounted for 71.60% of the total sterol content in the seed oil. Among the tocopherols present in the oil, γ-tocopherol (421.08 mg/kg) was the main constituent.
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Published in Khimiya Prirodnykh Soedinenii, No. 5, pp. 521–524, September–October, 2009.
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El Mannoubi, I., Barrek, S., Skanji, T. et al. Characterization of Opuntia ficus indica seed oil from Tunisia. Chem Nat Compd 45, 616–620 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10600-009-9448-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10600-009-9448-1