Constituents of crude cottonseed oil

Summary

A small quantity of so-called vegetable mucilage was separated from crude cottonseed oil. It was precipitated from an aqueous solution by normal lead acetate. No water-soluble gum could be detected. Experiments showed that this mucilage readily emulsifies the oil with water and that the emulsion does not break after standing for several days. It is believed that the mucilage constitutes only a very small part of the non-glyceride substances present in the oil.

Treating the oil with water and then extracting the separated oil repeatedly with large volumes of alcohol only removes part of the resin. The resin is partially removed from an alcoholic solution by an alcoholic solution of copper acetate in the form of a dark yellow flocculent precipitate. The copper salt is insoluble in alcohol and ether. It is believed that part of the deep red color of the crude oil is due to this resin.