Premium
The composition and concentration of n‐alkanes in retail samples of edible oils
Author(s) -
McGill Alister S,
Moffat Colin F,
Mackie Peter R,
Cruickshank Pamela
Publication year - 1993
Publication title -
journal of the science of food and agriculture
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.782
H-Index - 142
eISSN - 1097-0010
pISSN - 0022-5142
DOI - 10.1002/jsfa.2740610312
Subject(s) - alkane , composition (language) , sunflower , food science , chemical composition , chemistry , sunflower oil , petroleum , carbon chain , long chain , botany , hydrocarbon , horticulture , organic chemistry , biology , polymer science , linguistics , philosophy
Abstract : A range of edible oils were purchased from a variety of retail outlets and analysed for their n ‐alkane (Σ33/15) content. The concentrations ranged from 7 to 166 mg kg −1 , the lowest being walnut oil and the highest sunflower oil. n ‐Alkanes with chain lengths of C 27 , C 29 and C 31 predominated in all of the plant oils except olive oil where C 23 , C 25 and C 27 were the most significant. The results of this pilot survey suggest that the n ‐alkanes are indigenous and that their composition may be useful in characterising a specific plant seed oil. Two of the 42 samples analysed showed markedly different alkane patterns in which profiles similar to petroleum‐based sources dominated the contribution from odd carbon n ‐alkanes typical of seed oils.