Abstract

The species Astrocaryum aculeatum (Arecaceae) is known in the Brazilian Amazon as tucumã, whose fruit is much appreciated by the population of the region, where its pulp, oleaginous, is the most consumed. Thus, the aim of this work was to perform a profile of fatty acids by GC-FID and minerals by ICP-OES of the oil of the pulp of the tucumã (A. aculeatum), as well as their physicochemical properties by ¹H NMR. The fruits were collected in Alto Alegre city, Roraima, Brazil. These were taken to the laboratory, sanitized and removing your pulp, submitted to the oven with air circulation at 50 °C for 72 h, the dried pulps were milled and sieved between 20-40 mesh. The pulp oil extraction was realized in Soxhlet with hexane for 6 hours (yield of 54.7%). Were identified a total of 10 fatty acids, of these 23.8% are saturated fatty acids and 76.2% are unsaturated fatty acids: palmitic acid (10.4%), stearic acid (4.9%), oleic acid (64.2%), linoleic acid (11%) and linolenic acid (1%). The physicochemical properties have a pulp oil acid index of 0.31 mg KOH g^-1, saponification of 190.39 mg KOH g^-1, iodine index of 85.97 mg g^-1. Minerals such as in their available forms K (70.05 mg L^-1) Na (30.30 mg L^-1), Ca (20.13 mg L^-1) and P (20.07 mg L^-1) were observed in high concentrations. The Amazon tucumã is an oleaginous that deserves our attention because it is composed of essential fatty acids that are beneficial to the human health.

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