Pecan Oil
INCI Carya Illinoinensis Seed Oil. Also: Pecan nut oil, Carya illinoinensis seed oil.
Calculate a 100 % Pecan Oil bar
That is stoichiometry on a measured composition rather than a guess, and it is about as well determined as a published figure: checked against the 35 Codex oils where both fields come from the same standard, the method's median error is 0.90 % and its 90th percentile 2.74 %, with no meaningful bias. The formula page shows the working. If you have a certificate of analysis for your lot, enter its measured value in the calculator and this estimate is set aside.
Published values
| Saponification value | not published |
| Derived from composition | 191.4 ± 3 % mg KOH/g |
| Used by the calculator | 191.4 mg KOH/g (derived) |
| SAP for NaOH | 0.1364 g/g |
| Iodine value | — |
| INS (SAP − IV) | — |
| Melting point | — |
| Unsaponifiable matter | — |
A bar made of 100 % Pecan 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 | 0.05–0.08 (typical 0.05) | 0.1 |
| Palmitic acid | C16:0 · saturated | 4.26–6.08 (typical 5.97) | 6.0 |
| Palmitoleic acid | C16:1 | 0.05–0.1 (typical 0.07) | 0.1 |
| Stearic acid | C18:0 · saturated | 2.2–2.54 (typical 2.36) | 2.4 |
| Oleic acid | C18:1 | 54.83–75.31 (typical 63.95) | 64.0 |
| Linoleic acid | C18:2 | 16.21–33.75 (typical 25.86) | 25.9 |
| α-Linolenic acid | C18:3 n-3 | 0.74–3.03 (typical 1.17) | 1.2 |
| Arachidic acid | C20:0 · saturated | 0.08–0.2 (typical 0.11) | 0.1 |
| Gadoleic acid | C20:1 | 0.25–0.4 (typical 0.29) | 0.3 |
| Behenic acid | C22:0 · saturated | 0.01 | 0.0 |
Where these numbers come from
Section 2.1 (retail bottles, Oliver Artesian Oils), 2.2 (GC-FID method); Table 1 fatty-acid composition, pecan column.
GLC area-%; used for min/max.
Samples Q69 and Q66; used for min/max.
GLC area-%; used for min/max.
The 'typical' column is Table 1 of Dean 2025 (Front. Nutr. 12:1721761, open access), a retail cold-pressed pecan oil from Oliver Artesian Oils (Pitts, Georgia, USA), GC-FID on a BPX-70 column quantified by normalisation (AOCS Ce 1f-96): myristic 0.05, palmitic 5.97, palmitoleic 0.07, heptadecanoic 0.06 (no key), stearic 2.36, oleic 63.95, linoleic 25.86, alpha-linolenic 1.17, eicosenoic 0.29, arachidic 0.11, behenic 0.01 %; erucic and lignoceric not detected; SFA 8.56, MUFA 64.31, PUFA 27.03 %, together 99.90 %. Min/max add PlantFAdb pecan datasets: #22032 (plant 11506), 'Technical note: Fatty acid composition of tree nut oils' (2007), 70.3 % oil, palmitoleic 0.1, palmitic 5.7, linolenic 1.1, linoleic 22.1, oleic 66.9, stearic 2.2, eicosenoic 0.4, arachidic 0.2 %; #13680 and #13681 (plant 17395), 'Chemical and physicochemical characteristics of pecan (Carya illinoensis) oil native of the central region of Mexico' (1998), two native Mexican samples at palmitic 4.26/5.55, linolenic 1.71/3.03, linoleic 16.21/33.75, oleic 75.31/54.83, stearic 2.23/2.38 %; #21172 (plant 16103, filed under the synonym Carya olivaeformis), 'Analytical characterization of new seed oils' (1985), myristic 0.08, palmitoleic 0.05, palmitic 6.08, linolenic 0.74, linoleic 22.5, oleic 67.04, stearic 2.54, eicosenoic 0.25, arachidic 0.08 %. The Mexican pair shows how far the oleic/linoleic split moves between trees (55-75 % oleic); that is the main uncertainty for a maker, and it changes the oil's shelf life more than its lye. SAPONIFICATION AND IODINE VALUE are null: none of the documents opened prints them (PlantFAdb tabulates only the fatty acids of the 1998 Mexican study, whose full text could not be opened); the typical composition implies about 191 mg KOH/g. READ AND NOT USED: Posta et al. 2026 (Molecules 31(17):3093) report two of their three pecan oils (both Romanian) at 55.5-56.8 % linoleic and 31 % oleic, and two of their three walnut oils at 57-58 % oleic - the reverse of what both nuts normally are - which looks like a sample or column mix-up, so none of its figures are used. FOR SOAP: similar in use to high-oleic sunflower or almond oil - conditioning, soft on its own, moderate shelf life. INCI name and CAS number are CosIng's; an older spelling, 'Carya Illinoensis Seed Oil', is also active there with the same CAS number.
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.