Characteristics and Composition of a High Oil Yielding Castor Variety from Pakistan.

Keeping in view the versatile applications of castor oil in cosmetic, pharmaceutical and recently as renewable source, the present work is a step towards the commercialization of castor on large scale in Pakistan. The current study introduces a castor variety with high oil content. Initially seeds were physically examined for some physical parameters. Seed moisture, ash content and linear dimensions such as length, width and thickness were found to be 4.53%, 6.44%, 12.24 mm, 8.31 mm and 5.67 mm, respectively. For oil extraction, Soxhlet method was used which resulted in the high oil content 54.0%. For quality assessment of oil, physicochemical parameters were checked according to official standard AOCS methods and compared with ASTM specifications. The determined parameters were as follows; specific gravity 0.953 g/cm(-3), refractive index 1.431, viscosity 672.0 mPas.s, moisture content 0.32%, FFA 0.14%, IV 83.61 gI2/100 g, PV 2.25 meq/Kg and SV 186.0 mgKOH/g. Furthermore, fatty acid analysis of oil showed that, most abundant fatty acid was ricinoleic acid 94.59%, followed by palmitic 0.31%, linoleic 1.84%, oleic (n-9) 2.05%, oleic (n-10) 0.22%, stearic 0.45% and eicosenoic acid 0.53%. The detected fatty acids were compared with registered variety and varieties of other regions.