GC-MS Analysis the Fatty Acid Components of Tamarindus indica Seeds in Vietnam

Abstract

Tamarindus indica is an edible plant, especially its fruits were wildly used as food or herbs in Vietnam. The seed of Tamarindus indica has been already studied for its phytochemistry and some bioactivities, but there still have limited publications about the fatty acid part of this material. The dried seed (8 kg) of T. indica was extracted with methanol to yield a methanol crude extract (1 kg) and partitioned successively with n-hexane, chloroform, ethyl acetate to obtain n-hexane (0.25 g), chloroform (15 g), ethyl acetate (70 g) and water (700 g) extracts, respectively. Then, seven sub-fractions were prepared from ethyl acetate extract and labelled as TI-A to TI-G. The fatty acids in the TI-A fraction were hydrolyzed to make derivatives and identified by GC-MS equipment. There are seven fatty acids, both saturated and unsaturated acids, myristic acid, palmitic acid, stearic acid, isoarachidic acid, docosanoic acid, linoleic acid (54.17%), and oleic acid (20.32%) were analyzed from the high polarity fractions of ethyl acetate extracts. This is the first public about the fatty acids from T. indica seed collected in Vietnam and analyzed by gas chromatography – molecular spectrometric method.