Abstract: In order to determine the types and relative contents of fatty acids in 4 kinds of silkworm pupal oil, oil transesterification was carried out with KOH/CH3OH, followed by gas chromatography-mass spectrometric analysis. Results indicated that acid values, saponification values and peroxidation values differed significantly among the 4 kinds of pupal oil. All the four tested materials contained the following major components: linolenic acid (LNA), palmitic acid, stearic acid, oleic acid andα-linolenic acid, which exhibited different relative contents. Among them, the relative content of unsaturated fatty acids in oak silkworm pupal oil was the highest, which was up to 77.29% and castor silkworm pupal oil contained the mostα-linolenic acid, with a relative content of 50.52%. Desilked pupal oil contained more unsaturated fatty acids than silkworm pupal oil.

Key words: silkworm pupal oil, fatty acid compostion, gas chromatography-mass spectrometry