Delonix regia is an underexploited plant with oil-rich seeds. This study characterized the bioactive constituents in the seed oil with a view to ascertaining its usefulness in replacing expensive conventional oils in industrial applications. Identification and quantification of the compounds were done with gas chromatography with flame ionization detector (GC-FID) after extraction using n-hexane. The main bioactive contents per 100g oil were tocopherols (53.10 mg), tocotrienol (1.64 mg), terpenoids (0.461 mg), phospholipids (378.11 mg), and sterols (507.42 mg). Sitosterol (310.63 mg), campesterol (105.81 mg), and stigma-sterol (78.31 mg) dominated the sterols while phosphatidylcholine (249.43 mg) and phosphatidylinositol (81.56 mg) were the major phospholipids. The major tocols were α-tocopherol (3.93 mg) and ɣ- tocopherol (48.83 mg), whereas ɣtocotrienol (1.08 mg) was the major tocotrienol. Terpenoids including taraxerol, α-amyrin, β- amyrin, luperol and bauerenol acetate were quantified in trace amounts. It was concluded that the D. regia seed oil could contribute to novel research applications in food, cosmetics, pharmaceutical, and various other non-food industries.
