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ARS Home » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #62458
Title: ISOLATION AND CHARACTERIZATION OF WAX ESTERS IN MEADOWFOAM OIL

Author
item Isbell, Terry
item Carlson, Kenneth
item Abbott Dr, Thomas
item Phillips, Bliss
item Erhan, Selim
item Kleiman, Robert

Submitted to: Industrial Crops and Products
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: 10/24/1995
Publication Date: N/A
Citation: N/A

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: Meadowfoam (limnanthes) is a developing new oilseed crop currently grown in the Northwestern United States. Meadowfoam production has increased steadily since 1984 with 2200 acres planted in the fall of 1994. Meadowfoam seeds yield up to 30% oil. The oil is composed of long chain fatty acids with 5-eicosenoic acid (64%) as the major fatty acid. The other main components are 5,13-docosadienoic acid (19%) 5-docosenoic acid (3%) and 13-docosenoic acid (10%). This unique combination of monoenoic fatty acids makes for a very oxidatively stable oil with an AOM value of 200 as compared to other vegetable oils such as soybean oil and high oleic sunflower oil which have AOM values of 14 and 90, respectively. Particulate matter found in refined meadowfoam oil samples was isolated by first centrifugation and then crystallization from acetone. The white crystalline solid had a melting point of 77-78C and was characterized as a mixture of wax esters by 1HNMR, 13C NMR and IR. GC analysis of the wax esters indicated a gaussian distribution of esters from C44-C56 including odd chain esters. Base hydrolysis of the wax ester and GC analysis of the fatty methyl esters and fatty alcohols indicated a mixture of saturated methyl esters from C16 to C32 including small amounts of the odd chain methyl esters C21-C29 with the predominate methyl ester being C24. The alcohol portion of the wax esters contained saturated chain lengths of C20-C30 including odd chains of C21-C29. The main alcohol component was the saturated C24 alkanol. GC-MS confirmed the GC assignments. A normal phase HPLC technique was developed to determine the amount of wax ester (0.06% to 0.12%) in refined meadowfoam oil samples.