Chiang Mai Journal of Science

The isolation of fatty acids from mustard seed oil after lipase hydrolysis was investigated. The mustard seed oil was hydrolyzed by Candida rugosa lipase at room temperature for 20 hours and the methyl ester derivatives of their respective fatty acids were analyzed by gas chromatography. Ten fatty acids were identified, comprising 18.9% by mass of the mustard seed oil. Percent by weight of oleic acid, linoleic acid, linolenic acid and erucic acid were found to be 6.16, 3.35, 1.09 and 4.85 of the mustard seed oil, respectively (or 32.6, 17.7, 5.77 and 25.6 of total fatty acid, respectively). Crystallization of erucic acid from the hydrolysis mixture at -11° C using several solvents (ethanol, methanol or acetone) was investigated. The most suitable solvent was aqueous ethanol ( 8:1, ethanol : water, v/v) which resulted in erucic acid crystallized with 34.0% purity.