EXTRACTION AND CHARACTERIZATION OF MULBERRY SILKWORM,BOMBYXMORI L., PUPAE OIL

摘要

Mulberry silkworm, Bombyx mori L., pupae oil was extracted from dried pupal powder by soxhlet, maceration and column extraction methods and the overall oil recovery was optimized indigenously. The oil content in spent and fresh silkworm pupae was maximum (29-34%) with hexane column extraction method. The qualitative characteristics (acid, saponification, iodine and peroxide values) of extracted silkworm pupae oil were at desirable level. Fatty acid profiles of spent pupae oil by gas chromatography revealed predominance of olic acid (32%) followed by a-linolenic acid (29%) and palmitic acid (21%), whereas in fresh pupae oil a-linolenic acid level was 32.2% followed by oleic acid. Silkworm pupal oil is enriched with a-linolenic acid, which has potential medical and pharmaceutical applications was isolated and characterized. Higher a-linolenic acid was recovered by chemical method (92%), whereas only 83% recovered by enzymatic method after urea inclusion complexes followed by fractional crystallization at -20°C.