Vol. 11, Issue 12 (2022)

Author(s):
Akshay R Patil, Pranav Wadje and R Meenatchi

Abstract:
Silkworm is generally used for producing silk yarn. Three species of silkworm such as Mulberry silkworm (Bombyx mori), Eri silkworm (Philosamia ricini), and Muga silkworm (Antheraea assamensis) were used to extract oil from the pupae and were characterized for their quality and fatty acid profile analysis. After reeling silk live pupae are discarded and are considered as waste material. Raw silk cocoons consist of exuvia, pupae, silk fibre, and cocoon. On average, silkworm pupae weigh about 60-70% weight of their total cocoon. The proximate composition analysis, rate of oxidation activity, colour values, and also the fatty acid composition of three different varieties of silkworm pupae revealed that they are rich in protein ranging from 50.23±0.02-45.80±12 g/100 g, fats (30.21±0.04-26.30±0.26 g/100 g) low source of CHO (12.02±0.04-10.12±0.02 g/100 g) and ash (5.30±0.03-4.60±0.03 g/100 g). The iodine value, peroxide value, and acid value of silkworm oil reveal that it has good oxidative stability and among the three species mulberry silkworm has better oil quality oil characteristics & yield were extremely compared to others. The colour values reveals that the L, a, and b values were similar to the edible oils. The fatty acid profile indicates that silkworm pupae oils are a rich source of omega 3 and omega 6 fatty acids. Especially linolenic acid and mulberry silkworms were found to have the highest value (60.71%) followed by Eri (57.9%) and Muga (54.66%) respectively. This study provides information on the quality of three species of silkworm pupae oil from Indian origin.