Project Materials

EXTRACTION AND CHARACTERIZATION OF WHITE MUCUNA PRURIENS VAR. UTILIS SEED OIL

Chapter one

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Preamble

In today’s globe, the geometric expansion in population has prompted serious worries about food security to feed the teeming population (Sridhar, 2007).

The African developing countries have been struck the worst, particularly Nigeria, which still has the capacity to manage food production challenges caused by present global warming and other environmental changes.

The limited dietary products typically lack appropriate proteins, critical fatty acids, and vitamins, resulting in the most common form of malnutrition in persons. Interestingly, unconventional legumes show promise in terms of nutrition, food security, agricultural development, and crop rotation in impoverished countries (Sridhar, 2007). The wild bean types have varying amounts of protein, carbs, fibre, lipid/fatty acids, and minerals.

Mucuna pruriens var.utilis is a tropical legume from the family Fabaceae and the genus Mucuna. Some of its common names are Agbara (Igbo), Yerepe (Yoruba), Mauritius bean, cow itch, cow hage, and Jackbohne (German).

Velvet bean is a robust climbing vine that grows to a height of 3-18cm. It is indigenous to tropical locations, particularly Africa, India, and the West Indies. Its pods are sigmoid, turgid, longitudinally ribbed, and invariably crowded on the stem.

The pods are covered in reddish-orange hairs that easily dislodge, producing severe skin irritation. The pods contain black or white seeds (Sidhuraju, 2000; Leslie, 2005; Sridhar, 2007).

Mucuna seed oil may be edible and include a variety of fatty acids, as is characteristic of most oil seeds. The chemical makeup of an oil extract provides a qualitative identification of such oil in a variety of applications, despite variances in oil processing and extraction (Ofoegbu, 2006).

The goal of this research is to extract oil from the white seeds of Mucuna pruriens var. utilis, characterise it, and establish its application, based on quantity, in industries such as beverage, pharmaceutical, and/or soap manufacture.

1.2 PURPOSE OF STUDY

This effort was motivated by the desire to identify alternate sources of high-quality oils for human use in industry.

1.3 Scope of The Study

This work is aimed

(1) Determine the percentage of oil content in white seeds of Mucuna pruriens var.utilis.

(2) Determine the moisture content of the seeds used.

(3) Characterise by acquiring the physiochemical properties of the oil.

(4) Based on the results and information supplied in the oil literature, recommend possible industries for which the oil can be used.