A novel method for the determination of acid value of vegetable oils

Abstract

AbstractThe voltammetric behavior of naphthoquinone in the presence of free fatty acids (FFA) at the polypyrrole (PPy)‐modified electrode was investigated in an ethanol/1,2‐dichloroethane (3 : 1) solution containing 0.1 M LiClO4. A well‐defined new reduction peak appeared at a more positive potential and was higher than that obtained at the bare Pt electrode. Based on the fact that the new reduction peak current showed a good correlation with the concentration of fatty acids, an electroanalytical method for the acid value (AV) of vegetable oils was developed using the PPy‐modified electrode in linear potential sweep voltammetry. The experimental parameters were optimized to obtain a sensitive voltammetric response in this work. A linear calibration graph was obtained in the concentration range of 5.0×10–6–6×10–3 M for FFA (R = 0.993), with a sensitivity of 2.41×10–2 A L/mol and a detection limit of 1.2×10–6 M (S/N = 3). Each assay of vegetable oil sample took about 80 s. The developed method is applied to the AV determination of six commercial vegetable oils. The results well agreed with those obtained by the titration method. Compared to the conventional titration method, the proposed method is superior in sensitivity and accuracy and requires a small amount of vegetable oil sample, with no pretreatment.