Preparation of pure petroselinic acid

Abstract

Petroselinie acid of 99.5-100% purity has been isolated from coriander, fennel and anise oil by acid soap crystallizations at 4C, followed by urea segregations at room temperatures.

New preparation of pure petroselinic acid from fennel oil (Foeniculum vulgare)

“…Using Chobanov's method we have obtained PA in high purity (99% by combined GC-13C NMR method). If the purity was of the same order as that given by Chobanov et al (15), then the yield obtained with this method (25%) was much lower than the yield claimed in the literature (64%; ref. 15).…”

“…Although PA represents by far the main fatty acid in fennel oil, its preparation at a high level of purity, vide supra, is quite difficult (8,16). Since Chobanov's method (15) seemed to us the most interesting (high level of purity and high yield), we evaluated which steps were most important. We used GC [palmitic acid, OA+PA and linoleic acid (LA)] and combined GC-13C NMR (see Table 1 for chemical shifts) for complete quantitation.…”

Processing of crambe for oil and isolation of erucic acid

“…The ethanol/FFA ratio was subsequently increased gradually to 6 mL/g of FFA, at which point white crystals formed rapidly. Low-temperature crystallization procedures employing aqueous and nonaqueous solvents in conjuction with other methods have been reported for the preparation of erucic acid from rapeseed oil (11)(12)(13). However, satisfactory recoveries of pure erucic acid were not obtained.…”

“…Direct crystallization of the mixed acid soaps from 90% methanol followed by three recrystallizations at 15°C produced crystals with better than 90% erucic acid. Recoveries of up to 48% were reported, depending on the original composition of the rapeseed oil acids (13).…”

“…One study was published on the purification of erucic acid from crambe oil (11); several related studies based on rapeseed oil have also been reported (12,13).…”