Alternative Solvents for Moringa oleifera Seeds Extraction
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Asian Network for Scientific Information
Abstract
Description
Moringa oleifera is a versatile plant and has wide applicability. Two critical factors
that make the oil more readily available for use are its ease of processing techniques
and production rate. Solvent extraction using various solvents is common and is
usually more efficient than mechanical presses. Hence investigating the suitability
of three solvents-hexane, Isopropyl Alcohol (IPA) and Petroleum Ether (PE) in the
extraction of moringa seeds from northern (sample 1) and southern (sample 2) parts
of Nigeria was carried out using a soxhlet extractor between 2 and 12 h. The
percentage yield of oil from the two samples was found to be dependent on the
solvent used, the residence time and the source of the seed sample. Petroleum ether
gave the highest yield of 49.38 and 37.57%, next was hexane with 44.94 and
34.71% while isopropyl alcohol gave 36.39 and 28.43%, for samples 1 and 2,
respectively. For all solvents, sample 1 produced higher oil yield. The percentage
oil yield increased with time reaching an optimum at between 8-10 h. From
chromatographic analysis, besides other trace components, the predominant fatty
acids present in the Moringa oleifera oil include oleic, stearic, palmitic, linoleic and
palmitoleic acids. The overall composition of the oil indicated higher levels of
unsaturated than saturated acids with oleic acid having the highest percentage
composition of 68.8% in all the extracted oil samples. The results obtained from
this investigation showed that the alternative solvents (IPA and PE) considered can
potentially substitute n-hexane in Moringa oilseed extraction.
Keywords
TA Engineering (General). Civil engineering (General), TP Chemical technology