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castor oil

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castor oil

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Also known as castor bean oil, ricini oleum

vegetable oil obtained by pressing the seeds of the Castor plant, Ricinus communis

Wikidata facts

Image
Castor oil.jpg
Has use
cathartic
Show 4 more facts
Commons category
Castor oil
NCI Thesaurus ID
C80990
natural product of taxon
Q155867
water footprint
24740
Sources (6)

via Wikidata · CC0

~13 min read

Encyclopedic overview

Castor oil is a vegetable oil pressed from castor beans, the seeds of the plant Ricinus communis. The seeds are 40 to 60 percent oil. It is a colourless or pale yellow liquid with a distinct taste and odor. Its boiling point is 313 °C (595 °F) and its density is 0.961 g/cm. It includes a mixture of triglycerides in which about 90 percent of fatty acids are ricinoleates. Oleic acid and linoleic acid are the other significant components.

Some 270,000–360,000 tonnes (600×10^–790×10^ lb) of castor oil are produced annually for a variety of uses, including soaps, lubricants, hydraulic and brake fluids, paints, dyes, coatings, inks, cold-resistant plastics, waxes and polishes, nylon, and perfumes.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “castor oil” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.

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