Use of triacylglycerol profiles established by high performance liquid chromatography with ultraviolet-visible detection to predict the botanical origin of vegetable oils

A method for the determination of triacylglycerols (TAGs) in vegetable oils from different botanical origins by HPLC with UV-vis detection has been developed. Using a core-shell particle packed column (C18, 2.6 μm), TAG separation was optimized in terms of mobile phase composition and column temperature. Using isocratic elution with acetonitrile/n-pentanol at 10 °C, excellent efficiency with good resolution between most of the TAG peak pairs, within a total analysis time of 15 min, was achieved. Using mass spectrometry detection, a total of 15 peaks, which were common to oils of six different botanical origins (corn, extra virgin olive, grapeseed, hazelnut, peanut and soybean) were identified. These peaks were used to construct linear discriminant analysis (LDA) models for botanical origin prediction. Ratios of the peak areas selected by pairs were used as predictors. All the oils were correctly classified with assignment probabilities higher than 95%.     

Differential scanning calorimetry: a potential tool for discrimination of olive oil commercial categories

Differential scanning calorimetry thermograms of five commercial categories of olive oils (extra virgin olive oil, olive oil, refined olive oil, olive-pomace oil and refined olive-pomace oil) were performed in both cooling and heating regimes. Overlapping transitions were resolved by deconvolution analysis and all thermal properties were related to major (triacylglycerols, total fatty acids) and minor (diacylglycerols, lipid oxidation products) chemical components.All oils showed two well distinguishable exothermic events upon cooling. Crystallization enthalpies were significantly lower in olive oils due to a more ordered crystal structure, which may be related to the higher triolein content. Pomace oils exhibited a significantly higher crystallization onset temperature and a larger transition range, possibly associated to the higher amount of diacylglycerols. Heating thermograms were more complex: all oils exhibited complex exo- and endothermic transitions that could differentiate samples especially with respect to the highest temperature endotherm.These preliminary results suggest that both cooling and heating thermograms obtained by means of differential scanning calorimetry may be useful for discriminating among olive oils of different commercial categories.     

Kinetic evaluation of non-isothermal crystallization of oxidized extra virgin olive oil

In this study, accelerated storage tests were carried out at 60 °C up to 20 weeks on three extra virgin olive oils (Evoos) with different total phenol contents and fatty acid compositions (named as EvooA, EvooB, and EvooC). Their oxidative statuses, evaluated by means of primary oxidation value and total phenolic content, were related to both the shapes of differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) cooling curves and thermal properties. DSC cooling curves were all deconvoluted as crystallization occurs in a quite narrow range, and the single steps are not well separated. The first deconvoluted DSC peak for the three samples tested, which occurs in the temperature interval between −45 °C and −30 °C, can probably be ascribable to the crystallization of tri-unsaturated triacylglycerols. A non-isothermal crystallization kinetic procedure, derived by the well-known isothermal Avrami equation, combined with the method of Ozawa, was applied to the first deconvoluted DSC peak only by processing the data related to this DSC peak. Results of the modified Avrami method were found in agreement with those of the Ozawa method. In particular, Avrami and Ozawa's exponents lie from 2 to 4 (being those of fresh samples always lower than those subjected to the accelerated oxidation test). Crystallization is relatively slow for fresh samples whereas after the first 4 weeks; it occurs faster in EvooB and EvooC.     

Study of the influence of triacylglycerol composition on DSC cooling curves of extra virgin olive oil by chemometric data processing

In this work, a coupled high-pressure liquid chromatography-differential scanning calorimetry-partial least square (HPLC–DSC–PLS) procedure was applied to clarify the influence of triacylglycerol composition on the shape of cooling curves for extra virgin olive oil (EVOo), as chemometric processing of digitized DSC curves was previously reported to be an attractive alternative to the application of the common procedure of parameter extrapolation for the analysis of thermal transition. 69 samples of EVOo were analysed to obtain triacylglycerol (TAG) composition by means of HPLC and DSC cooling profiles. Results obtained by the application of PLS algorithm on TAG concentration (%) and digitized DSC curves showed that cooling transitions were markedly influenced by OOO, OLO and OOP + SLO that are the most representative TAG for EVOo. Other TAG as LLP + OLnO, LLL + LLPo and POPo developed good PLS models, appearing to influence EVOo cooling curve, although less markedly than the further. Otherwise, the other identified TAG did not render appropriate models. Finally, grouping TAG according to different unsaturation degree, high correlation coefficients (>0.80) and low relative standard deviations (<11 %) were found for sum of tri-unsaturated triacylglycerols in both calibration and validation sets. Starting from these encouraging results, this new and fast coupled approach may be applied to a wider set of EVOo samples to tentatively discriminate among oils according to different geographical and/or botanical origins taking into account relation established among TAG and cooling curves.     

Application of differential scanning calorimetry to freeze-dried milk and milk fractions

Journal of Thermal Analysis and Calorimetry - Four ionic cobalt hexacyanidoferrate(II) complexes with formulae [Co(NH3)6]4[Fe(CN)6]3·12H2O (1) [Co(NH3)6]2Cl2[Fe(CN)6]·4H2O (2),...