Anais do Simpósio Latino Americano de Ciências de Alimentos
Actas del 14 SLACA - Simposio Latinoamericano de Ciencia de los Alimentos

The Passiflora cincinnata Mast. occurs frequently and spontaneously in the semi-arid region of Brazil, possessing interesting characteristics for food applications. However, use is limited to its pulp only. Given the need to conduct studies on regional fruit seed oils and to take advantage of food residues, this study aimed to identify the fatty acids (FAs) profile in the oil of P. cincinnata seeds by ultrasonic extraction. For this, the seeds were dried in an oven at 60 °C. Oil extraction occurred at 25 °C in an ultrasonic bath, at 40 kHz and 60 W, using ethyl ether. The FAs profile of the methyl esters was measured by gas chromatography coupled to a mass spectrometer. Data were analyzed by descriptive statistics at 5 % significance, using Sisvar version 5.6. Seed moisture was 5.68 ± 0.20 %, consistent with the literature, where values between 2.97 % and 9.45 % are found. The average extraction yield was 14.83 ± 0.05 %, with 11.53 % of monounsaturated FAs, 75.55 % of polyunsaturated and 12.75 % saturated, with a higher predominance of polyunsaturated FAs, especially linoleic acids (74.89 ± 0.02 %), oleic (11.32 ± 0.01 %) and palmitic acids (9.25 ± 0.00 %). It is worth mentioning the presence of 0.66 ± 0.00 % linolenic acid. The results are similar to those of the species P. setácea, P. nítida and P. edulis, since all have predominance of polyunsaturated FAs, especially linoleic acid. In short, high amounts of linoleic, oleic and palmitic acids shows that this vegetable oil has application potential for the food industry, being a good source of essential FAs (omega-6 and omega-3).