Constituents of the essential oil and fatty acid from Malania oleifera

Abstract

The essential oil and fatty acid composition of Malania oleifera were determined by GC–MS techniques. The yield of essential oils was 0.1±0.02%, 0.2±0.03% and 1.1±0.12%, respectively from seeds, branches with leaves and outer part of pericarp (exocarp and mesocarp) of M. oleifera. Seventeen compounds were identified in the essential oils of seeds with benzyl alcohol (58.42%), benzaldehyde (29.66%) and benzoic acid (1.49%) as main constituents. Both branches with leaves and outer part of pericarp, the major constituents include benzaldehyde (87.15% and 90.68%), benzyl alcohol (6.51% and 2.95%), benzeneacetonitrile (5.66% and 0.07%) as the most abundant components. These results indicated that benzaldehyde and benzyl alcohol were found as the main essential oils obtained from the different parts of M. oleifera. The yield of fatty acids extracted from the seeds was 60.5±2.5%, which contains fourteen chromatographic components, of which 10 compounds were identified, representing 98.98% of the lipids; the major components were nervonic acid (55.70%), octadecenoic acid (23.81%), docosenoic acid (13.13%), tetracosanoic acid (2.65%), dodecenoic acid (1.28%), tricosadienoic acid (0.99%) and hexadecanoic acid (0.45%). The results demonstrated that the quantities of unsaturated fatty acids were higher than that of saturated analog.