Abstract:

Wheat belong to the genus Triticum, as annual plants of the family Gramineae or Poaceae, grown in many countries, including Tunisia with one million hectares annually. Wheat grain is a particular fruit, caryopsis and the outer envelope is adherent to plant seed material. During milling, envelopes (hulls) are separated from the grain (endosperm + embryo). The embryo or germ is the essential part of the seed to plant reproduction and is containing a lot of fat (about 15%) or oils. The Soxhlet technique is used for the extraction of wheat germ oil. Normal hexane (n-hexane) is commonly used for edible oil extraction. Comparison of the extracted oil of durum wheat germ and soft wheat germ showed a marked difference in their chemical composition. The basic chemical composition analyses revealed low values of dry matter (14.77g /100g of durum wheat germ and 19.87g /100g of Soft wheat germ), low amounts of total ash content (5.3g/100g of durum wheat germ and 4.99g /100g of Soft wheat germ) and high fat contents (17.12g /100g of durum wheat germ and 15.96g /100g of Soft wheat germ). The yield of extraction by Soxhlet was about 13.12% for durum wheat germ and 11.22% for soft wheat germ. The fatty acid composition of these two wheat germ oils indicates the presence of C18:2, C16:0 and C18:1. The major one is C18:2 with 56.68% for Soft wheat germ oil and 53.43% for durum wheat germ oil

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