Extraction and Characterization of Seed Oil from Naturally Grown Chinese Tallow Trees

Seeds were collected from locally and naturally grown Chinese tallow trees (CTT) and characterized for general physical and chemical properties and fatty acid composition of the lipids. The effects of four different solvents (petroleum ether, hexane, diethyl ether, and 95 % ethanol) and two extraction methods (supercritical carbon dioxide (SC-CO₂) and conventional Soxhlet) on the properties of the CTT seed oil, including Chinese vegetable tallow (CVT) and stillingia oil (SO), were also investigated. In general, the yields of CVT and SO did not vary based on solvent for Soxhlet extraction and solvent-free SC-CO₂ extraction, except that the yield of CVT from SC-CO₂ extraction was substantially lower. Nevertheless, the CTT seed oil, extracted by SC-CO₂ displayed better quality than those extracted by Soxhlet extraction in terms of color, residual precipitation, and acid value of the oils. The pretreatment of CTT seed by 3 % aqueous sodium bicarbonate solution likely promoted the hydrolysis of triglyceride and caused the high acid value in the CVT samples. The iodine value at around 180 indicated that the SO is a highly unsaturated drying oil. Palmitic (76 %) and oleic (23 %) are two dominant fatty acids in CVT while linolenic (43 %), linoleic (31 %), and oleic (13 %) are the dominant fatty acids in SO.