Physicochemical Properties and Fatty Acid Composition of Seed Oils of Four Species of Citrus Grown in the Cataract Plateaus of Congo
The objective of this work was to characterize the oils extracted from the seeds of Citrus sinensis, C. reticulata, C. paradisi and C. aurantium from Congo using hexane and ethanol as extraction solvents. The fruits used to carry out this work come from the cataract plateaus. The seeds were dried in an oven. Citrus seed oil extractions with different solvents were carried out using the Soxhlet method. The physicochemical characteristics of the oils were determined using the AOAC method. Gas chromatography was used to determine the fatty acid composition. The results showed that hexane is the best solvent for extracting oils from Citrus seeds with yields of 53.22±0.48% for Citrus sinensis, 43.74±0.52% for Citrus reticulata., 51.47±0.28% for Citrus paradisi and 50.55±0.33% for Citrus aurantium. The results of the Fatty Acid profile show that the seed oils of these Citrus trees are very rich in Unsaturated Fatty Acids with contents ranging from 64.94 to 71.53% with a dominance in Poly Unsaturated Fatty Acids ranging from 32.32 to 71.53%. 46.01%. The dominant fatty acids in these oils are linoleic acid and oleic acid for unsaturated fatty acids and palmitic and stearic acids for saturated fatty acids.