Abstract: In this work, urea adduction fractionation was used to purify linoleic acid from Pyracantha fortuneana seed oil and the purified product was further separated by silica column chromatography to obtain squalene. The effects of adduction time, adduction temperature and oil-urea-ethanol ratio on the purity and recovery rate of linoleic acid were probed by one-factor-at-a-time and orthogonal array design methods. The analysis of linoleic acid and squalene was performed by GC-MS.  The results showed the optimal adduction parameters were adduction time of 12 h, adduction temperature of －5 ℃, and oil-urea-alcohol ratio of 1:2:6 (g/g/mL). Under the optimal adduction conditions, the purity of linoleic acid was increased from 38.40% to 68.55%, and the recovery rate of linoleic acid reached up to 72.23%. After separation by silica column chromatography, a squalene sample with 98.16% purity was obtained .

Key words: Pyracantha fortuneana, urea adduction fractionation, linoleic acid, column chromatography, squalene, gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS)