Castor oil: An export feasibility study; Coca Cola India

Abstract

Castor is indigenous to Eastern Africa and most probably originated in Ethiopia. Castor Oil is derived from the bean of the castor plant, Ricinus Communis L., of the family Eurphorbiaceae. The castor plant occurs in practically all tropical and subtropical countries, either wild or cultivated. It is also found widely as both an ornamental and cultivated plant in temperate zones where, because it is frost sensitive, it is grown annually from seed. It is a highly heterogeneous species, with wide variations in the size, form, and colour of the plant, as well as the size and colour of the seed: There is relatively little variation in the oil content of fully matured seeds and in the chemical composition of the oil. The seeds are toxic and the ingestion of even one seed can be fatal to humans. The seeds of the castor plant are produced in racemes, or clusters of capsules. The capsules are usually spiny arid each contains three seeds, The hulls surrounding the seeds constitute roughly one third of the weight of the mature capsule, The seeds are mottled to varying extents, most often with sf shades of dark brown overlaying shades of light brown. Seed size of commercial varieties varies from 250 to 1680 per kilogram. Castor Oil is also known as Ricinus Oil, oil of Palma Christi, tangantangan oil and Neoloid. Typical of most oils, the oil is a triglyceride of fatty acids. What is unique is that the fat contains 87-90% ricinoleic acid, a rare source of an eighteen carbon hydroxylated fatty acid with one double bond. Castor Oil, sometimes described as a triglyceride of ricinoleic acid, is one the few naturally occurring glycerides that approaches being a pure compound.