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ARS Home » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #82360
Title: LARGE IMPROVEMENTS IN THE OXIDATIVE STABILITY INDEX OF VEGETABLE OILS BY ADDITION OF SMALL AMOUNTS OF MEADOWFOAM OIL

Author
item Isbell, Terry
item CARLSON, KENNETH - RETIRED ARS
item Abbott Dr, Thomas

Submitted to: Association for the Advancement of Industrial Crops Conference
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: 5/20/1998
Publication Date: N/A
Citation: N/A

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: The poor oxidative stability of vegetable oils is one factor slowing the growth of vegetable oil markets in industrial applications. Consequently, there has been an increased effort to develop stable oils through the use of antioxidants. A relative new instrument for determining the oxidative stability of vegetable oils (OSI, Oxidative Stability Instrument) is now available. We have surveyed the oxidative stability of a range of vegetabl oils and found that a developing new crop meadowfoam (limnanthes alba) has very high oxidative stability when compared to other vegetable oils. Unrefined meadowfoam oil has a high OSI time (110 C) of 246.9 hours when compared to other stable oils such as refined jojoba oil, 31.4 hours and refined high oleic sunflower 49.8 hours. Refining of meadowfoam oil, however, greatly reduces its oxidative stability to 67.3 hours which is still higher than the other vegetable oils that were screened. Binary mixtures of vegetable oils were also examined for oxidative stability. Of the binary oil systems that were studied, meadowfoam had the most pronounced effect on jojoba oil by increasing the oxidative stability 40% with only 5% incorporation of unrefined meadowfoam oil. However, unrefined meadowfoam failed to improve the oxidative stability of refined soybean oil but did improve the oxidative stability of triolein (95%) greater than 21-fold. The unusually high oxidative stability of meadowfoam oil could not be attributed to its tocopherol content (668 ppm tocopherol) nor its iodine value (93.0) when a relationship of oxidative stability versus iodine value and tocopherol content were compared to other oils.