The composition of corn oil obtained by the alcohol extraction of ground corn

Abstract

AbstractAll commercial corn oil is obtained by the hexane extraction of corn germ. The chemical composition of commercial corn oil has been well characterized. This study was under‐taken to quantitatively evaluate the lipid composition of corn oil obtained by the ethanol extraction of ground, whole corn kernels. When corn oil was obtained by extracting ground corn kernels (ground corn) with polar or nonpolar solvents, the resulting corn oil contained much higher levels of hydroxycinnamate steryl esters (≈0.3%) than those found in commercial hexane‐extracted corn (germ) oil (≈0.02%). The levels of valuable tocopherols and tocotrienols were also significantly higher in kernel oil than in traditional corn germ oil. We previously reported that when corn oil was obtained by extracting corn kernels with polar solvents, the oil contained two polyamine conjugates, diferuloylputrescine and p‐coumaroyl feruloylputrescine. In the current study, when ground corn was extracted with ethanol, the resulting corn oil contained about 0.5% diferuloylputrescine and about 0.2% p‐coumaroyl feruloylputrescine. This is the first study to quantify these unique compounds in corn oil extracted by new techniques. This compositional information is important because this new oil is being considered for human food use.