Chemical composition and characteristic profiles of seed oils from three Tunisian Acacia species

• Chemical composition of three Acacia seed oils was compared.
• A slight difference was observed in the acid and saponification values.
• Fatty acid composition was dominated by linoleic, palmitic and oleic acids.
• Syringic and ferulic acids were the dominant phenolic compounds.

In this paper, physicochemical properties, fatty acid and phenolic compositions of Acacia cyclops, Acacia cyanophylla and Acacia mollissima oils were studied. These oils were compared in terms of physicochemical properties and fatty acid composition to soybean oil. The oil content of Acacia seeds is 8.85%,11.13% and 7.16%, respectively. A small difference was observed in the acid and saponification value. However, no differences were observed for refractive index, iodine value and fatty acid composition. This latter was essentially dominated by linoleic acid (56.66–60.52%), oleic acid (19.45–22.74%) and palmitic acid (9.36–12.25%). This study compares also the phenolic composition in Acacia seed oils. Syringic and ferulic acids were the dominant phenolic compounds observed in the studied oils. Minor amounts of phenolic acids as o-coumaric, p-coumaric and protocatechuic are also detected. The results of this preliminary study showed that Acacia samples are promising oilseed crops and the high level of unsaturated fatty acids makes them desirable in terms of nutrition and could be used as a potential oil in the human diet.