CHEMICAL ANALYSES OF SHEA BUTTER FROM NORTHERN GHANA: ASSESSMENT OF SIX INDUSTRIALLY USEFUL CHEMICAL PROPERTIES

Abstract

Shea butter from Northern Ghana was collected for analyses in order to improve its visibility and commercial placement. Analyses were carried out to determine unsaponifiable matter, moisture, insoluble impurities, free fatty acids, peroxide value, catechins and total phenol content. The samples had high impurities, free fatty acids and moisture content but low peroxide content. The mechanically extracted samples contained less moisture, 0.177 ± 0.04% and 0.218 ± 0.02%, and also low amount of impurities. The highest mean moisture content, 0.542 ± 0.19%, was found in samples from the Upper East region, while manually extracted samples from the Northern region had the highest mean level of impurity (1.1996 ± 0.55%). Least mean amount of free fatty acid, 3.383 ± 0.05%, was in samples from the Upper East region and the highest, 6.334 ± 0.01%, was found in the manually extracted samples from the Northern region. Unsaponifiable matter was least (5.04 ± 0.04%) in the mechanically extracted sample from the Northern region and the corresponding highest mean amount (7.89 ± 0.02%) was also from the Upper West region. Generally, all the samples had low total phenol and peroxide levels, respectively ranging from 0.0575 ± 0.002 mg/g of phenolics in samples from the Upper East to 0.0255 ± 0.000 mg/g in the manually extracted samples from Northern region. 7.08 ± 0.13 meq/kg peroxide content was also found in samples from Upper West and 3.96 ± 0.06 meq/kg from the Northern region. Most of the Shea butter samples analysed was good for the chocolate, confectionery, pharmaceutical and cosmetics industries.