SQUALENE EXTRACTION AND PURIFICATION FROM BIDARA (ZIZIPHUS MAURITIANA) SEEDS

Abstract

Squalene is a high value compound in the pharmaceutical and cosmetic industries that is mainly produced from shark liver oil. However due to the dwindling population of sharks, the production of squalene becomes challenging. Therefore, plant-based alternatives were sought to overcome this challenge. Bidara or Ziziphus mauritiana is one of the alternative sources of squalene. The objective of this research is to determine the most suitable extraction and purification method to obtain Bidara seed oil containing squalene. This was determined through three phases which includes solvent screening through maceration, selection of most suitable extraction method and purification by saponification followed by liquid-liquid extraction. The most suitable solvent was determined to be methanol. The most suitable extraction method is soxhlet using methanol solvent with a solid-to-solvent ratio of 1:10 w/v for 6 hours at the temperature range of 65-70℃. This method yielded 32.901.08% of crude Bidara seed oil with a relative squalene content of 0.2360.008%. The purification through saponification followed by liquid-liquid extraction yielded 1.550.22% of purified oil containing 1.9270.206%.