The passion fruit (Passiflora edulis) is originary from Tropical America and has been growing largely in Brazil, being a crop very rich in vitamin C, calcium and phosphorus. Peels and seeds of Passion fruit that come from the cut and extraction process of fruit in order to extract juice are still throw out in large amounts. As such amounts depict lots tons, ascribing values to the by-products is of great economical, scientific and technological interest. The aim of the current manuscript is to characterize a better utilization of seeds deriving from the processing of passion fruit juice for human nutrition. For that, a separation procedure for different parts of the fruit with gravimetric quantification has been adopted. The obtained seeds were dried in stove and afterwards grounded for obtaining the bran. The oil of the obtained bran was extracted with hexane and characterized by means of an official methodology proposed by AOCS (1995). The non greased bran has also been characterized by physical-chemical methods, through determination of the moisture, protein, lipid, fiber, ashes and carbohydrates contents based on the official methodology recommended by the AOAC (1984). The oil extracted from the seeds showed high levels of unsaturated fatty acid (87.54%), with a predominance of the linoleic acid, whose iodine index was of 136.5g I2/100g. The non greased bran showed contents of moisture, protein, lipid, ashes, fiber and carbohydrate equivalent to 10.53%; 15.62%; 0.68%; 1.8%, 58.98% and 12.39%, respectively.
seed oil; discard; by-products
