The isolation and characterization of lipid compounds from black soldier fly larvae

With the global demand for lipid compounds on the rise, concerns are growing about the environmental and economic impact of traditional lipid sources. This concern is exacerbated by the ever-increasing demand for plant-based lipids, which is contributing to unsustainable production practices and competition for land and food. Considering this challenge, this work aimed at exploring the potential of black soldier fly larvae (BSFL) as a low-cost and ecofriendly source of lipid classes. A fractionation scheme consisting of a mixture of polar and nonpolar solvents at different ratios was employed to isolate the lipid classes from BSFL oil using silica gel column chromatography, which is a conventional method of chromatography. The fraction's separation efficiency was validated using thin-layer chromatography and characterized with Fourier-transformed infrared spectroscopy and gas chromatography flame ionization (GC-FID). Triglycerides (30%) were found to be the most abundant component while cholesterols (0.6%) were the least abundant lipid fractions in the lipid mixture. GC-FID in the various lipid fractions analyzed, lauric acid exhibited the highest percentage among the triglycerides (16.64%), diglycerides (19.10%), monoglycerides (22.70%), and free fatty acids (27.65%) fractions. The fractionation scheme proposed achieves high efficiency in separating and recovering different lipid classes extracted from the BSFL.