Estimation of Toxic Phorbol Ester in Jatropha curcas Oil, Cake and Biodiesel

Abstract

Biodiesel is a promising fuel to eradicate energy crisis of the present world. Among various non-edible oil seed crops Jatropha curcas is widely used for biodiesel production. The seed was collected from Gujarat, India and oil content of the seed kernel was determined by soxhlet apparatus. The oil content of the kernel was 57 %. The oil was subjected to biodiesel preparation by twin step method of acid esterification followed by alkali transesterification. The yield of biodiesel after reaction was 98.05 % from ¹H NMR studies. Toxic phorbol ester fraction was extracted from both oil and dehulled cake whereas biodiesel was used directly. The phorbol ester content of oil, cake and biodiesel was determined by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC, Waters). The phorbol ester content of the oil was more (3.17 ± 0.04 mg g^-1) than the cake (1.59 ± 0.01 mg g^-1) but phorbol ester peak was not detected in biodiesel.