Laboratory report on quantification of anacardic acids from pistachio hulls

Abstract

Pistachio hull contains anacardic acids. It is a salicylic acid with a side chain either saturated or unsaturated. This work focused on the efficient extraction of anacardic acids using solvent. Six aliquots were weighed and extracted with hexane, ethyl acetate, and mixture of H2O/MeOH/HCl. Hexane was the most efficient solvent due to its ability to dissolve the anacardic acids. Only one anacardic acid standard was used to quantify all of them since the side chain does not affect the wavelength to a greater extent. HPLC-DAD was used for quantification purposes and HPLC-MS and retention time were used for qualitative analysis.