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This work aimed to extract fixed oil from moringa seeds by optimizing the oil extraction process parameters with the aid of response surface methodology (RSM). The effects of three independent oil extraction process factors particle sizes (0.3–0.7 mm), temperature (50–70 °C) and time (6–8 h) for oil extraction from moringa seeds were studied. The proximate analysis of moringa seeds: ash content, acid value, ester value and saponification value were 5 ± 0.46, 2 ± 0.77, 257 ± 73 and, 260 ± 0.50wt.%, respectively. A quadratic model was used to correlate the interaction effects of the independent variables for maximum oil extraction at the optimum process parameters by employing central composite design (CCD) with RSM. The work indicates that the interaction of temperature and particle sizes is the most significant parameters among the model terms, followed by the interaction of temperature and extraction time effect on oil yield and finally, interaction of particle sizes and extraction time had no significant effect on oil yield. The studied results reported a better oil yield: 43.18 ± 0.52% at extraction temperature of 59.79 °C, particle size of 0.41 mm and extraction time of 6.54 h with supported a maximum desirability of 1. The oil obtained was analysed for various parameters: acidity value 2.2 ± 0.05, iodine value 63.4 ± 0.08, refractive index 1.52 ± 0.01 and density 0.90 ± 0.01. This study concludes that oil obtained from moringa seeds could be utilized as a source of edible oil for human consumption.
Kedir et al. (Wed,) studied this question.