Abstract

FATTY ACID PROFILE OF WEB SILK FROM PAKISTAN

Zafar Iqbal*, Maham Liaqat, Arifa Shoukat, M. Usman Sabri and
Mubeen Akhtar

Abstract

The oil from the spider silk was extracted through soxhlet apparatus using n-hexane with 4.46% yield. Fatty acid profile was measured by gas chromatography (GC) coupled with flame ionized detector (FID). Esterification of the oil was carried out with methanol by using boron trifluoride (BF3) as catalyst. The GC FID study showed the Caproic acid (C8:0) 0.259%, Capric acid (C10:0) 1.5198%, Lauric acid (C12:0) 1.1475%, Myristic acid (C14:0) 3.0656%, Palmitic acid (C16:0) 38.7852%, Palmitoleic acid (C16:1) 0.4718%, Stearic acid (C18:0) 0.0628%, Oleic acid (C18:1) 23.1243%, Linoleic acid (C18:2) 4.6999%, Arachidic acid (C20:0) 1.268%, Linoleinic acid (C18:3) 3.4311%, Gadoleic acid (C20:1) 4.2798%, Behenic acid (C22:0) 5.7898% and Lignoceric acid (C24:0) 6.6668% respectively. The oil of spider silk contains both lower molecular weight and higher molecular weight fatty acids. FT-IR spectrum illustrates the presence of CH2 (Anti sym str alkane) at 2920 cm-1, C-H /CH3 free (Sym str. alkane) at 2853 cm-1 and C=O (str. Carboxylic acid) at 1736 cm-1 and peak at 969 cm-1 showed the presence of trans-fat.

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