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ARS Home » Midwest Area » Peoria, Illinois » National Center for Agricultural Utilization Research » Functional Foods Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #337216
Research Project: Improving Quality, Stability, and Functionality of Oils and Bioactive Lipids

Location: Functional Foods Research

Title: Application of differential pulse voltammetry to determine the efficiency of stripping tocopherols from commercial fish oil

Author
item LUBECKYJ, RACHELE - University Of Michigan
item Moser, Jill
item FHANER, MATTHEW - University Of Michigan

Submitted to: Journal of the American Oil Chemists' Society
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 2/22/2017
Publication Date: 3/3/2017
Citation: Lubeckyj, R.A., Winkler-Moser, J.K., Fhaner, M.J. 2017. Application of differential pulse voltammetry to determine the efficiency of stripping tocopherols from commercial fish oil. Journal of the American Oil Chemists' Society. 94:527-536.

Interpretive Summary: As researchers work on the development of naturally-derived antioxidants to replace synthetic antioxidants in foods, new methods for fast and non-destructive measurement of antioxidants are needed. In this manuscript, and electrochemical measurement technique known as differential pulse voltammetry (DPV) was used for the first time to measure tocopherols directly in fish oils, and to verify the removal of tocopherols in antioxidant-stripped fish oils. Standard curves for quantitation were developed and the limits of detection and limits of quantitation were determined, and compared to the standard method of analysis, high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). Limits of detection and limits of quantitation for measuring fish oil tocopherols using DPV were comparable to HPLC, while sample preparation and analysis time were quite a bit lower. This demonstrates that DPV may be a viable method for measuring tocopherols and other antioxidants directly in oils without the need for HPLC analysis. It also paves the way for studying electrochemical methods, which offers many advantages, for the identification, quantitation, and determination of efficiency of different antioxidant systems.

Technical Abstract: There has been an increase in the use of electrochemical methods for monitoring antioxidant levels in a variety of disciplines due to the sensitivity, low detection limits, ease of use, low cost and rapid analysis time offered by these techniques. One technique that has received specific attention is differential pulse voltammetry. We describe a novel application of differential pulse voltammetry to quantitatively and qualitatively determine the efficiency of removing tocopherols from commercial fish oil via column chromatographic separation. The relative limits of detection and quantitation of differential pulse voltammetry are compared to HPLC for determining the removal of tocopherols from commercial fish oil. It was determined that differential pulse voltammetry can monitor the separation of commercially added antioxidants from the bulk sample via a decrease in antioxidant oxidation currents. Furthermore, the limits of detection and quantitation were found to be comparable with values obtained using HPLC for tocopherol identification and quantitation.