Browsing by Author "Taamallah, Marwa"
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- AMBROSIA sustainable reuse of prickly pear seeds to extract oil with compound of high interestPublication . Taamallah, Marwa; Cabo, Paula; Sousa, Maria JoãoThe prickly pear or Opuntia ficus indica, is a robust plant abundant in the Portuguese territory from south to north, but remains poorly exploited and integrated in the culture and consumption habits of the Portuguese. This report presents a study of the pure oil of prickly pear seeds extracted by cold pressing and without additives. This study has involved 3 plans, physical, chemical and toxicological. We obtained acceptable results and in accordance with the standards as the density, pH, refractive index. Also an interesting and competitive profile of the fatty acids of opuntia ficus indica was detected by a gas chromatography. The main fatty acid was linoleic acid with a value of 70.277%, followed by palmitic and oleic acids with respective values equal to 15.401% and 8.349%. According to these found results, our oil is considered polyunsaturatedwhich presents multiple benefits for our health. It was also shown that the median lethal dose LD50 is equal to 10%, a result to be reinforced.