Biochemical and technological properties of seeds and oils of Capparis spinosa and Capparis ovata plants growing wild in Turkey

Abstract

The physical and chemical properties of seeds of Capparis spinosa var spinosa and Capparis ovata Desf var. canescens (Heywood) were determined. Seeds were evaluated for dry matter, crude protein, crude oil, crude fibre, crude energy and ash. Contents of Al, Ca, Cu, Fe, K, Mg, Na, P and Zn in both the seeds were also determined by Inductively Coupled Plasma Atomic Emission Spectrometry (ICP-AES). The main fatty acids identified by gas chromatography were oleic (38.45% and 44.62%), linoleic (23.71% and 18.26%) and palmitic (10.23% and 8.41%) acids. The seeds were found to be rich in oil and minerals and fatty acids, suggesting that they may be valuable for edible oil sources and industrial by-product. The data may also be useful for the evaluation of nutritional information. Also, physical properties such as length (3.76 mm and 3.68mm), unit mass (0.012 g and 0.012 g), geometric mean diameter (2.92 mm and 2.87 mm), projected area (0.092 cm 2 and 0.095 cm 2 ) , sphericity (0.778 and 0.781) , kernel density (728.44 kg/m 3 and 794.50 kg/m 3 ), porosity (30.21 % and 37.06 %), bulk density (502.88 kg/m 3 and 488.48 kg/ m 3 ), static (0.345 - 0.665 and 0.369-0.658) and dynamic coefficient (0.297 - 0.563 and 0.314 – 0.558) of friction of C.spinosa and C.ovata species were measured at 5.18% and 4.93% moisture content levels, respectively.