% FFA determination in crude, degummed and refined vegetable oils

by kits and correlation with the potentiometric method

Cibele C. Osawa, Lireny A. G. Gonalves, and Renato Grimaldi, Laboratory of Oils and
Fats / DTA / FEA / State University of Campinas, Campinas, Brazil.
Hidrolytic rancidity is an undesirable phenomenon that occurs in oils and fats in the
presence of enzymes (lipases or lipoxygenases) or humidity, producing free fatty acids
(FFA). The % FFA is a slightly easy way of detecting abusive conditions of storage,
handling, and transport. The determination of FFA is performed by titration of diluted
samples with standard sodium hydroxide, using phenolphthalein as indicator. As this
method is time consuming and depends on the accuracy of the analyst in detecting the
titration end point, fast and accurate methods are desirable. The objective of this study
was to evaluate the efficacy of the FaSafeTM kits (DiaMed, Switzerland) in the prediction
of the % FFA values of 16 refined vegetable oils bought at local market and 10 samples
of crude or degummed vegetable oils. Kit results were compared with the results of the
potentiometric method, which consisted of the official AOCS method Ca 5a-40, with
the replacement of phenolphthalein by the potentiometric titrator TitroLine easy
(SCHOTT, Germany) adjusted to stop automatically titration at pH = 8.8, without the
interference of human errors; 7.0 g of sample for crude and degummed oils, 56.4 g for
refined oils and NaOH 0.05 M or 0.1 M. The correlation equations were done by Linear
Regression, using the software MiniTab for Windows version 12.1 and averages were
compared with ANOVA and Tukey Tests ( = 5%), using SAS for Windows version 8.2.
The pigment present in crude and degummed oils interfered in kit results, which are
based on colorimetric measurement at 570 nm by the MicroChemTM Analyser
colorimeter (Source Scientific, USA), and no correlation was found with the
potentiometric method. For refined oils, kit correlated well with the potentiometric
method by the equation y = 0.76 x + 0.01 (r = 0.91), with no significant difference
between methods when the kit results were corrected by a factor of 0.8. This study
suggests that the FaSafeTM kits can substitute the potentiometric method for % FFA
evaluation of refined vegetable oils, with advantages of minimal quantities of samples
and reagents used, fewer residue generation, compact equipments, small working
areas, less risks to operators.