Comparative Assessment of Physical and Chemical Characteristics of Prickly Pear Seed Oil from Opuntia ficus-indica and Opuntia megacantha Varieties

Table 1

Oil content and quality parameters of seed oils of two prickly pear species: Opuntia ficus-indica (“Safra” and “Aakria” varieties) and Opuntia megacantha (“Derbana” variety) compared with other nutraceutical and cosmetic oils.

Parameters	Prickly pear species and varieties			Nutraceutical and cosmetic fruits or seed oils
	Opuntia ficus-indica		Opuntia megacantha	Olive, Olea europaea [23, 24]	Argan, Argania spinosa [25]	Sesame, Sesamum indicum [26]	Black cumin, Nigella sativa [27]	Lentisk, Pistacia lentiscus [28]
	Safra	Aakria	Derbana
Oil content (%)	8.09^a ± 0.06	8.74^b ± 0.03	8.04^a ± 0.03	20–40.73	53.00	52.00	37.00	7.67–21.33
Free acidity (%)	0.71^a ± 0.04	0.64^a ± 0.04	0.60^a ± 0.04	<0.80	0.28	0.92	2.30	—
Extinction coefficient K232	2.25^b ± 0.03	2.24^b ± 0.04	1.82^a ± 0.07	<2.50	1.12	1.73	2.21	—
Extinction coefficient K270	0.92^b ± 0.04	0.95^b ± 0.08	0.66^a ± 0.04	<0.22	0.21	0.52	2.77	—

Means (±standard errors) with the same letter within rows did not differ significantly according to the Student–Newman–Keuls test at .