Tracemetals content (contaminants) as initial indicator in the quality of heat treated palm oil whole extract

Abstract

An investigation was carried out on the effect of different sterilization time on the trace metals concentration of palm oil whole extract. Palm fruits were collected, cleaned and sterilized for 0, 20, 40 and 60 minutes. The kernels were then stripped from the sterilized fruits to get the pulp and later the pulp was pressed using small scale expeller. The resulting puree was centrifuge at 4000 rpm for 20 minutes. The palm oil whole extract were then collected and trace metals analysis was conducted using Inductively Couple Plasma-Mass Spectrometry (ICP-MS). The result showed that the highest yield was obtained at 40 minutes of sterilization with 19.9 ± 0.21 % (w/w). There was no significant different (p <0.5) in total trace metals content between the degrees of the heat treatment. Na+ was found as the highest trace metals content in the extract with mean concentration ranging from 1.05 ± 0.03 ppm to 2.36 ± 0.01 ppm. 40 minutes of heating time was predicted to ha ve good oil quality due to higher content in trace metals that inhibit the lipase enzyme activity.