The Effect of solvent extraction techniques on fatty acid composition of pistachio oil

Pistachio oil has important nutritional and therapeutic properties because of high concentration of essential fatty acids. The extraction method used to obtain natural compounds from row matter is critical for product quality and especially for protection of their nutrition value. This study was conducted to compare fatty acid composition of pistachio oil extracted by two conventional procedures: soxhlet extraction (Sox) and maceration. Different solvents: n-Hexan (Hx), dichloromethane (DCM), ethyl acetate (EtAc) and ethanol (EtOH) in term of polarity index were used. The highest unsaturated fatty acid content (88.493%) was obtained by Sox with EtAc. Sox method extracted the most concentration of oleic and linolenic acids (51.99% and 0.385% respectively). Although linoleic acid had higher concentration (36.32%) in mac method.

Keywords:

fatty acid composition , gas chromatography , pistachio oil , solvent extraction