CHAPTER ONE
1.0INTRODUCTION
Orange is from the citrus family, the fruit’s size varies with cultivars and crop load, but most often measure between 2.5-4 includes in diameter. The shape of the fruit is spherical to oblong, with a peel thickness between that of grape fruit and tangerine and it is either smooth or rightly pebbly. The presence and amount of seed, depends on the cultivar (Nwobi et al, 2006).
Papaya (carica papaya) is a plant that grows wild in many part of the tropics. papaya is important for its fruit and it is cultivated mainly for this purpose (Puangsri et al, 2005). It varies in size, most are oblong, globular or round, often five angled and narrowed at the tip. Inside hollow of the fruit is lined with numerous dark grey seeds. The seed of papaya and orange fruits are generally discarded.
However in other to make a more efficient use of papaya and orange, it is worth investigating the use of the seeds as a source of oil. The extraction and use of vegetable oil has for centuries played an important role in the manufacture of large number of industrial product and food items (puangir et al, 2005)
Kar and Mital (1999) reported that shear butter is a natural fat obtained from the seeds of the shea tree Butyrespermum park: the shea butter fat was extracted from the seeds with various organic solvents such as petroleum ether, n- hexane, chloroform and benzene. It is concluded that these solvents, particularly petroleum ether and n-hexane, could be used for the extraction of shear butter that is free from any oxidized fat and coloring impurities. Akpan et al (1999) carried out extraction and characterization of castor seed oil and reported that tested parameters which include specific gravity, refractive index, acid value, saponification value, and iodine value for both crude and refined castor oil product were of good quality.