Black Cumin Seed Oil
Also: Nigella sativa seed oil, Black seed oil, Kalonji oil, Habbatus sauda oil.
Published values
| Saponification value | 188–243.52 mg KOH/g |
| Used by the calculator | 215.8 mg KOH/g (midpoint) |
| SAP for NaOH | 0.1538 g/g |
| Iodine value | 104.37–140 g I₂/100 g |
| INS (SAP − IV) | 94 |
| Melting point | — |
| Unsaponifiable matter | 1.2–1.6 % |
A bar made of 100 % Black Cumin Seed Oil
Conventional qualities summed from the fatty-acid groups; a single-oil bar is a reference point, not a recipe.
Fatty-acid profile
| Fatty acid | Published range, % | Used | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Myristic acid | C14:0 · saturated | 0.17–0.22 | 0.2 |
| Palmitic acid | C16:0 · saturated | 11.77–13.36 | 12.6 |
| Palmitoleic acid | C16:1 | 0.15–0.21 | 0.2 |
| Stearic acid | C18:0 · saturated | 2.27–3.59 | 2.9 |
| Oleic acid | C18:1 | 20.59–26.37 | 23.5 |
| Linoleic acid | C18:2 | 53.42–61.54 | 57.5 |
| α-Linolenic acid | C18:3 n-3 | 0.14–0.45 | 0.3 |
| Arachidic acid | C20:0 · saturated | 0.14–0.23 | 0.2 |
| Gadoleic acid | C20:1 | 0.14–0.43 | 0.3 |
| Behenic acid | C22:0 · saturated | 0.03–0.16 | 0.1 |
Where these numbers come from
Table 1 fatty-acid composition ranges across 13 commercial oils and oil yield; Table 4 acid value, peroxide value, conjugated dienes.
Table 2: saponification value, iodine value, free fatty acids, peroxide value, refractive index for cold-pressed and supercritical-CO2 oils.
Table 1 row 'Kalonji (black seed) oil': iodine value 120-140, saponification value 188-194, unsaponifiable 1.2-1.6 %, density 0.918-0.924 (review's reference [90]).
Table 4 control-sample fatty-acid composition (corroboration only); Table 3 acid and peroxide values.
Fatty-acid ranges are from the PRIMARY paper (Molecules 2024), Table 1: 13 commercial Nigella sativa seed oils (India 6, Syria 3, Egypt 2, Poland 2), min-max across samples; that table also gives eicosadienoic acid C20:2 at 1.83-2.54 %, which is characteristic of this oil but is not a key in this schema. That paper did not measure saponification or iodine value. The SAP and IV fields therefore span two other documents that disagree: (a) Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine 2016, Table 2, MEASURED saponification value 238.26 +/- 0.67 mg KOH/g (cold press) and 243.52 +/- 0.3 (supercritical CO2), iodine value 104.37 +/- 0.43 g I2/100 g (cold press) and 115.1 +/- 0.24 (SFE), refractive index 1.47, free fatty acids about 6 %; (b) the Frontiers in Nutrition 2026 systematic review, Table 1 row 'Kalonji (black seed) oil' (its reference [90]): saponification 188-194, iodine 120-140, unsaponifiable 1.2-1.6 %, density 0.918-0.924. The 2016 SAP values (238-244) are well above the review range and above what the fatty-acid profile would suggest; the min/max here are simply the span of what the two documents print, and the unsaponifiable range is from the review only. Corroborating single-sample fatty-acid data seen in Food Science & Nutrition 2024 (PMC11077178, control cold-pressed oil, Table 4): palmitic 13.20, stearic 2.54, oleic 23.68, linoleic 56.22, linolenic 0.42, C20:2 2.55 %. Melting point not given (liquid oil). INCI not verified on CosIng in this session, left null.
This record is part of the open ingredient database (ODbL). Found an error or a better primary source? The dataset is on GitHub; corrections with a document link are welcome.