Published in Scientific Papers. Series B, Horticulture, Vol. LXVI, Issue 2
Written by Luisa ANDRONIE, Ioana POP, Florica MATEI, Aurelia COROIAN, Ancuța ROTARU, Rodica SOBOLU, Alexandru MATIES, Vasile ROMAN, Andreea BEBU
Cucurbita maxima is a plant with a flexible and hanging stem that belongs to the Cucurbitaceae family. The fruit of this species (pumpkin) is characterized by a strong orange peel with distinctive grooves. The Cucurbita maxima L. has a considerable economic importance, beyond this variety huge quantities of seeds and shells can be obtained. Although the shells do not have a final application, they contain large amounts of tocopherols and five times more carotenoids than seeds. Pumpkins are commonly grown for human consumption, for decoration, and also for livestock feed. Because, the pumpkin is cultivated in many countries having very important medical properties are necessary more studies regarding his bioactive compounds and nutritional values. Vibrational spectral techniques, FT-IR, offer several advantages in the context of current research and using this techniques we can identify molecular components in the samples studied. IR spectroscopy is based on the absorption of radiation in the 400-4000 cm-1 range which excites molecular vibrations. Our research had the objective to analyze a vibrational spectra of C. maxima pumpkin variety seeds and pulp, using a method which is based on microscopic infrared study (FT-IR).
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