Physicochemical characterization of Moringa oleifera seed oil obtained by mechanical and solvent extraction

The Moringa oleifera Lam is a tree belonging to the genus Moringacea. The seeds can be utilized as natural coagulant in water treatment and its oil presents high nutritional quality. The main objective of this present work was investigated the characterization of Moringa seed oil in two classical methods of extraction (solvent and mechanical). For the mechanical extraction was performed in a hydraulic press using a pressure of 12 ton and the time of extraction was 2 hours, for solvent extraction used a Soxhlet apparatus using the solvent n-hexano and the time extraction was 8 hours. The oil obtained was analyzed according to the fatty acid composition. The chemical characterization of the oil was performed by determining the indices of acidity, saponification and iodine.  According to results the yield of solvent extraction was found to be higher than the mechanical extraction, 37.0 and 26.02%, respectively. The chemical characteristics indicated the solvent extraction obtained lower iodine values in wijis (46.63 and 63.66) and same saponification value (161.26 and 162.97mg_KOH/g_oil). The two extraction methods showed significant differences in the fatty acid composition at the 5% level of significance. The oil has good stability due to a low content of polyunsaturated fatty acids. The oil obtained by extraction with hexane showed a percentage of oleic acid (74.66%) slightly higher than the oil extracted with presage mechanics (73.79%). The characterization of oil from seeds of Moringa oleifera showed that it has a potential to become a new source of oil for human consumption.