Preparation of Fatty Acid Methyl Ester From Virgin Coconut Oil and Evaluation of Its Antifungal Activity

Posted: 7 Feb 2020

See all articles by aathira sujathan nair

aathira sujathan nair

Amrita School of Pharmacy

Sneha S

Amrita School of Pharmacy

Reshma Raj

Amrita School of Pharmacy

Priyanka Raju

Amrita School of Pharmacy

Subin Mary Zachariah

Amrita School of Pharmacy

Date Written: February 5, 2020

Abstract

Virgin coconut oil (VCO) is the pure unrefined form of coconut oil. Here it is used for the preparation of fatty acid methyl ester. This is done by the transesterification process using a base catalyst in which the free fatty acids is being converted to its methyl ester form. This was taken as sample B since the virgin coconut oil itself is taken as sample A. Then a preheated oil sample was used for the preparation of another sample of fatty acid methyl ester using the same process and taken as sample C. Hydrolysis of VCO and preheated VCO was done for the enrichment of free fatty acid content, and later transesterification was performed with the hydrolysed sample which was taken as sample D and sample E respectively. Thus the four samples of the fatty acid methyl ester underwent chemical characterisation which includes acid number, saponification number, etc. Decrease in the acid number and increase in the saponification number indicates the presence of the fatty acid methyl ester content in the sample. The percentage of free fatty acid seemed to decrease which proves the conversion of free fatty acids to its ester form. Spectrum analysis of the sample was also done using FT-IR and GCMS to find out the composition of samples. From all the data collected it was seen that the sample E, the fatty acid methyl ester produced from preheated hydrolysed virgin coconut oil is of better quality when compared to the other samples. The antifungal activity of these samples were done by the agar well diffusion method in which all the samples were incorporated into different wells made in the agar plate and zone of inhibition was calculated and compared with that of the zone of inhibition of standard ketoconazole.

Keywords: Virgin Coconut Oil, Fatty Acid Methyl Ester, Antifungal.

Suggested Citation

sujathan nair, aathira and s, Sneha and Raj, Reshma and Raju, Priyanka and Mary Zachariah, Subin, Preparation of Fatty Acid Methyl Ester From Virgin Coconut Oil and Evaluation of Its Antifungal Activity (February 5, 2020). Proceedings of International Conference on Drug Discovery (ICDD) 2020, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3532179

Aathira Sujathan nair (Contact Author)

Amrita School of Pharmacy ( email )

Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham
AIMS Health Science Campus
Kochi, 682041
India

Sneha S

Amrita School of Pharmacy ( email )

Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham
AIMS Health Science Campus
Kochi, 682041
India

Reshma Raj

Amrita School of Pharmacy ( email )

Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham
AIMS Health Science Campus
Kochi, 682041
India

Priyanka Raju

Amrita School of Pharmacy ( email )

Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham
AIMS Health Science Campus
Kochi, 682041
India

Subin Mary Zachariah

Amrita School of Pharmacy ( email )

Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham
AIMS Health Science Campus
Kochi, 682041
India

Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?

Paper statistics

Abstract Views
1,185
PlumX Metrics