Prensagem das amêndoas de butiás (Butia quaraimana) e caracterização dos produtos resultantes

Abstract

The pindo palm is a palm in the genus Butia, whose fruits (butiá) coloration ranging from yellow to purple, with fibrous pulp and almonds with significant amounts of oil. The method of extraction of this oil by compression aims to remove the same from getting inside the grain resulting products as oil and pressed cake. This paper presents to study the press to extract the oil from the kernels Butiá palms and analyze the physical and chemical characteristics of almonds and products resulting from such pressing. The fruits used were Butia quaraimana species, endemic palm of Coatepe Palmar, located in the municipality of Quaraí, southwest of Rio Grande do Sul. Physicochemical characterization of almond was made through analysis of the diameter particle porosity of the bed of particles, moisture, ashes, lipids, proteins, fibers and carbohydrates, and pie for chemical analyzes were performed only. For the study of pressing used the methodology of experimental design, and the study variables were time, pressure and almonds paste and the response variable is the amount of extracted gross oil. To assess the quality of the oil the following analyzes were performed: acidity, iodine index, refractive index, saponification index, peroxide index, fatty acid profile and thermal gravimetric analysis (TGA). With respect to physical analysis of almonds was possible to obtain a particle diameter of 1.266 mm and a porosity of 0.696, values considered appropriate for the extraction of oil through pressing. In the chemical analysis of almonds obtained values for moisture, ashes, lipids, proteins, fibers and carbohydrates of 10.8±0.1%; 1.4±0.0%; 45.5±0.3%; 3.6±1.2%; 21.5±2.8% and 17.1±2.6%, respectively. In the study of pressing, through the analysis of variance, it was observed that the highest sample mass was the only variable that showed significant influence (p≤0.05) in the amount of extracted gross oil, where it can be seen that the best working region has the shortest time (1 h), shortest pressures (4 ton) and greater mass of sample (40 g). Obtained in this condition best 36.13±0.17% of gross oil extracted with 79.3±0.1% yield. In pie resulting from the pressing values for moisture, ash, lipids, proteins, fibers and carbohydrates were obtained: 5.8±0.8%; 3.8±0.1%; 8.8±0.3%; 24.4±0.6%; 33.6±0.3%; 23.5±0.0%, respectively. In the analysis of oil quality, met acidity values of 0.7±0.0% oleic acid, iodine index of 19.6 ± 1.1 gI2.100g-1, refractive index of 1.46±0.0, saponification number of 136.6±3.5 mg KOH.g-1 and an index absent peroxide. For the fatty acid profile was observed among the predominance of saturated lauric acid (42.5%), with respect to unsaturated fatty acids fatty acids, there was a predominance of oleic acid (14.7%). In TGA analysis were used to analyze the thermal stability of the oil under study, where it showed high stability over a range of 20°C to 300°C. The high content of lauric acid in almond oil butiá study may be of interest to develop food with this oil, as this fatty acid has been linked to various health benefits.