Liquid, solid fats

2003/03/06 Galarraga Aiestaran, Ana - Elhuyar Zientzia

• Industria
• Osasuna
• Fisika

In the food industry, hydrogenation is used to solidify vegetable oils, that is, the fatty acids that form the oil are saturated by the introduction of hydrogen. Thus, for example, margarines and other products similar to cheese are obtained. But hydrogenation is expensive and, as the proportion of saturated fatty acids increases considerably, these products are less healthy than original vegetable oils.

At the Institute of Science of India they have managed to solidify vegetable fats at room temperature without chemical changes. It has been shown that any mixture of saturated fatty acid of 10-31 carbon atoms is sufficient to gelify and solidify liquid fat in a ratio of 1/5. In addition, they have seen that the most appropriate are wax esters used to manufacture cosmetics.

Researchers believe this process is appropriate to produce products such as margarines and cheese with vegetable oils, as well as to give consistency to cosmetics and creams. It also serves to solidify oil, diesel, kerosene and other fuels. The mixture of these fatty acids with fuel allows to stop the spill and easily clean the spill.