Lipid Composition of the Hazelnut (Corylus Pontica C. Koch.) Cv. Ata Baba Grown in Bulgaria

Hazelnut (Corylus Pontica C. Koch.) cultivar Ata Baba grown in Bulgaria (harvest year 2009) has been investigated about neutral lipid classes, their fatty acid composition and the triacylglycerol species. Fat content of the oil (66.2%) was determined gravimetrically after extraction of dry kernels in Soxhlet apparatus (6 h with hexane). On the other hand, fresh kernels were treated firstly with iso-propanol and then extracted by chloroform-methanol (2:1) mixture (Christie, 1993) in order to obtain hazelnut oil for analyses of lipids. The neutral lipid classes were separated by thin layer chromatography (silica gel G plates, developed with hexane-acetone, 10:1 v/v), identified towards a standard mixture, isolated and weighed. It was established that the hazelnut cultivar Ata Baba contained polar lipids (0.6%), diacylglycerols (0.9%), sterols (0.9%), unidentified lipid zone X (0.8%), triacylglycerols (96.1%) and sterol esters (0.7%). Each of these classes (excepting free sterols) was transmethylated according to Christie (2003) and the methyl esters were analysed by gas chromatography