Fatty acid composition and total lipid content of the seed oil of Leucaena leucocephala (Lam) de Wit

Abstract

The common name for L. leucocephala are Lamtoro or Petai Cina (Indonesian), White lead tree (English) is one of the fastest growing leguminous trees in semi arid area. It is planted as a shade tree for cash crops, soil fertility improvement and a variety of other purposes. The seed oil of L. leucocephala (Lam) de Wit was investigated for its fatty acid composition and total lipid content. The main aims of the work were to determine the total lipid content and the fatty acid composition of L. leucocephala. The oil was obtained by n-hexane soxhlet extraction from the pulverized dried seeds of L. leucocephala, followed by the separation process of the oil by using silica gel column chromatography with different solvents then classified into different lipid classes (neutral lipids / NL, glycolipids/GL, and phospholipids/PL). The result showed that linoleic acid and ricinoleic acid dominated NL and GL whereas palmitic acid dominated in PL. NL, GL and PL fractions content unsaturated fatty acid 86.81%, 89.34% and 34.75% respectively. PL fraction was dominated by saturated fatty acid (65.25%).