PROPERTIES OF VEGETABLE-OILS MODIFIED BY HYDROGENATION, INTERESTERIFICATION AND FRACTIONATION

The advent of techniques of chemical processing (hydrogenation and interesterification) and physical processing (fractionation) provides the manufacturer the capacity of modifying one of many physicochemical properties of an oil or fat. In the present paper the influence of the chemical interesterification and thermal fractionation without solvent on the physical properties (melting point, solid fat index) of the products obtained by partial hydrogenation of soybean oil is studied. Properties of mixtures of partially hydrogenated soybean oil and totally hydrogenated coconut oil are also determined. The examples studied show that knowing the changes produced by current modification methods is useful to design fatty products for specific purposes.