Czech J. Food Sci., 2013, 31(3):236-240 | DOI: 10.17221/172/2012-CJFS

Quality of wheat germ oil obtained by cold pressing and supercritical carbon dioxide extractionOriginal Paper

Mehmet M. Özcan¹, Antonella Rosa², Maria A. Dessi², Bruno Marongiu³, Alessandra Piras³, Fahad Y. I. AL-Juhaimi⁴

¹ Department of Food Engineering, Faculty of Agriculture, Selcuk University, Konya, Turkey

² Department of Experimental Biology and

³ Department of Chemical Science, University of Cagliari, Cagliari, Italy; 4Department of Food Science & Nutrition, College of Food and Agricultural Sciences, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

Laboratory-prepared wheat germ oil was obtained by cold pressing and supercritical CO₂ extraction. The main objective was to compare the quality of both oil samples obtained, with emphasis on their fatty acids compositions and tocopherol contents. The percentages of palmitic, oleic, linoleic, and linolenic acids determined in the cold-pressed oil were 15.89, 15.48, 54.88, and 7.34% of total fatty acids, respectively, and those in the oil extracted by supercritical CO₂ were 16.50, 15.05, 54.79, and 7.29% of total fatty acids, respectively. The average proportions of saturated, mono- and polyunsaturated fatty acids calculated for wheat germ oil obtained by cold pressing accounted for 17.15, 17.63, and 62.22% of total fatty acids, respectively, and those calculated for wheat germ oil extracted by supercritical CO₂ were very similar, accounting for 18.14, 17.58, and 62.08% of total fatty acids, respectively. As expected, the fatty acid profiles determined in both oils studied were observed to be almost identical. In contrast, the level of α-tocopherol in the oil extracted by supercritical CO₂ was found to be considerably higher (1.27 mg/g) than that in the oil obtained by the cold pressing procedure (0.79 mg/g).

Keywords: fatty acid profile; α-tocopherol

Published: June 30, 2013  Show citation