Resumen

LIMACHI VALDEZ, Ivan; FARFAN, Oscar; STERNER, Olov  y  GIMENEZ TURBA, Alberto. Preliminary studies about the chemical characterization of fatty acids from Bertholletia excelsa fruit's oil by gas chromatography. BIOFARBO [online]. 2009, vol.17, n.1, pp. 47-53. ISSN 1813-5363.

Bertholletia excelsa, is a tree original from the South American Amazon humid forest. The fruits of this tree known as Brazilian Chesnutt represent one of the most important non wood products in the northern part of Bolivia. Therefore it is necessary to get to know the composition of the oil contained in the fruits found in the tropical regions in Bolivia in order to have quality standards for international markets. For the chemical characterization of the Brazilian Chesnutt oil we did carry out a nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) analysis and subsequently we did performed a trans-esterification under basic conditions to obtain the methyl esters of the fatty acids (FAME) that conform the triglycerides, the methyl esters were subsequently analyzed by means of gas chromatography mass spectrometry (GC-MS). The GC-MS analysis of the obtained FAME after the trans-esterification of the Brazilian Chesnutt oil did show a composition of: linoleic acid 51,1% oleic acid 32,7%, palmitic acid 9,4% and stearic acid 6,8%. All together these represent a total of 83,8% of unsaturated fatty acids.

Palabras llave : Brazilian Chesnutt oil; Bertholletia excelsa; Trans-esterification; CG-MS; NMR; linoleic acid; oleic acid; palmitic acid and stearic acid.