In comparison with these residues, gum presented a significantly higher γ-oryzanol content; however, the highest content was found, by far, in the soap samples, largely differing from that of the other residues (14.2 mg g−1, representing 95.3% of the total γ-oryzanol distribution). This value agreed with

reported γ-oryzanol contents in crude RBO (12.4 mg g−1, Pestana et al., 2008), thus confirming that almost all the γ-oryzanol was precipitated during neutralisation. As indicated in Table 2, the sum of the amounts of γ-oryzanol found in all the residues, as well as in the final products of RBO refining (refined RBO and purified fatty acids), represented ca. 12.7% of the initial Docetaxel molecular weight amount of this phytochemical

Bortezomib in vitro in crude RBO. The data given in Table 1 for γ-oryzanol agree with other reported values. Thus, according to Krishna, Khatoon, and Shiela (2001), the reduction of the γ-oryzanol content in RBO during neutralisation can be as large as 93–95.8%, whereas only small percentages are lost during degumming and dewaxing (1.1–2.3% and 2.0–5.9%, respectively). According to Orthoefer (1996) and Mishra, Gopalakrishna, and Prabhakar (1988), during neutralisation, high losses of neutral oil (18–22%), maximized by the synergistic effect of the precipitated soap and γ-oryzanol, occur. Both neutral oil and γ-oryzanol dragging, during soap precipitation upon neutralisation, can be due to the surfactant-like nature of soap, and probably the formation of emulsions in the precipitate. The γ-oryzanol content of 14.2 mg g−1 in the precipitated soap, given in Table 1, also agrees with the reported 12.2 mg g−1 (Scavariello, 1997). Methocarbamol This author also extracted γ-oryzanol from soap using acetone

at 10 °C for 60 min, obtaining an extract with 62.5 mg g−1 of γ-oryzanol. Finally, Krishna et al. (2001) indicated that bleaching and deodorising do not affect the γ-oryzanol content. Also according to literature reports, RBO refining produces large amounts of soap as a consequence of enzymatic activity of lipases, which largely increases the free fatty acid concentrations of crude RBO (De & Bhattacharyya, 1998). As illustrated in Fig. 2, the abundant soap residue is further treated to recover purified free fatty acids, which are then used by the cosmetics and cleaning industries. Thus, in order to support the development of procedures for γ-oryzanol recovery, its contents in the residues of soap processing should also be established. This point is further discussed in the next section. As also shown in Table 1, the δ-, (β + γ)- and α-tocopherol contents were separately quantified. With the exception of cast-off bleaching earth, all the other residues of RBO refining showed the following relative contents of the individual tocopherols: δ < (β + γ) < α. This order agreed with the reported values for crude RBO (Pestana et al., 2008).