Abstract
In this paper, a comprehensive study has been made on the detection of free fatty acids (FFAs) in palm oil via an optical technique based on enzymatic aminolysis reactions. FFAs in crude palm oil (CPO) were converted into fatty hydroxamic acids (FHAs) in a biphasic lipid/aqueous medium in the presence of immobilized lipase. The colored compound formed after complexation between FHA and vanadium (V) ion solution was proportional to the FFA content in the CPO samples and was analyzed using a spectrophotometric method. In order to develop a rapid detection system, the parameters involved in the aminolysis process were studied. The utilization of immobilized lipase as catalyst during the aminolysis process offers simplicity in the product isolation and the possibility of conducting the process under extreme reaction conditions. A good agreement was found between the developed method using immobilized Thermomyces lanuginose lipase as catalyst for the aminolysis process and the Malaysian Palm Oil Board (MPOB) standard titration method (R2 = 0.9453).
Highlights
Free fatty acid (FFA) detection in palm oil has attracted abundant attention from researchers since it is one of the most crucial aspects which influence the quality of palm oil products and their prices [1,2].High free fatty acids (FFAs) levels in palm oil lead to lower flavor quality [3], undesirable saponification, low product yields and complications in the subsequent separation processing steps [4]
FFA levels in palm oil are determined using a manual titration method based on the Malaysian Palm Oil Board (MPOB) standard procedure which involves titrating the sample against potassium hydroxide (KOH) using phenolphthalein as indicator [8]
The FFAs in palm oil can be converted into fatty hydroxamic acids (FHAs) when reacted with hydroxylamine hydrochloride in the presence of lipase enzyme
Summary
High FFA levels in palm oil lead to lower flavor quality [3], undesirable saponification, low product yields and complications in the subsequent separation processing steps [4]. FFA levels in palm oil are determined using a manual titration method based on the Malaysian Palm Oil Board (MPOB) standard procedure which involves titrating the sample against potassium hydroxide (KOH) using phenolphthalein as indicator [8]. This method involves manual operations, requires a high amount of solvents and the presence of high amounts of carotene causes difficulties to determine the end point of the titration [2]. More advanced techniques used nowadays to determine FFAs in palm oil are capillary Gas Chromatography (GC), High Performance
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