Antioxidant activities of tocopherols

Abstract

Tocopherols are known to show high antioxidant activities. Their action mechanism, however, has not yet been discussed sufficiently. In this study tocopherols were investigated kinetically, together with p-methoxyphenol. The rate equation shows that a tocopherol can trap more mol of radicals than two, namely 2.3–2.9 mol, per mol of tocopherol, and can trap alkyl radicals as well as peroxy radicals. The rate equation for p-methoxyphenol, on the other hand, suggested that it behaves similarly to a tocopherol in antioxidant action. The action mechanism of a tocopherol, thus, is estimated from detailed study on the antioxidant action of the smaller and simpler p-methoxyphenol, namely study on the kinetic evaluation and qualitative and quantitative analyses of products obtained after the antioxidant action of p-methoxyphenol.