A method for isolation of karanjin from the expelled cake of <i>Pongamia glabra</i>

Abstract

Abstract Due to the renewed interest in the production of biodiesel from nonconventional oils like karanja ( Pongamia glabra ), huge quantity of expelled cake will be generated in near future. However, due to the presence of several antinutritional components, expelled karanja cake cannot be used as feed for poultry and livestock. It needs detoxification and the first step during detoxification is the removal of karanjin, the major bioactive constituent. The present study aimed at isolation of karanjin from expelled cake. Accordingly, a simple and scalable process was developed for the isolation of karanjin with purity in the range of 95–97% from the expelled cake of karanja. Different solvents were screened by varying temperature, time, and amount of extracting solvents to extract karanjin from the expelled cake and dimethyl carbonate (DMC) was found to be the best among them. DMC extraction of 1.0 kg of expelled cake yielded 3.6 g (0.36% with respect to expelled cake) of karanjin of 97% purity.