Analyses in the field of fatty oils

The fatty oil industry has not yet made the same progress in the chemical processing of its products as is the case in the petroleum industry. After the initial success attained in the development of the fat-hardening technique, this industry has remained stationary for many years. However, the chemical modification of fatty oils is of vital importance and the development of modem processes in the fatty oil industry will depend to a large extent on the basic knowledge of its raw materials and the fundamental study of possible chemical transformations. 

On comparing the chemical composition of hydrocarbons and fatty oils, a certain parallelism between these two groups of products is found. Actually the difference is only due to the presence of a relatively small amount of oxygen in the esters. Thus, in principle, the structural analysis of fatty acid derivatives can be carried out by removing the oxygen and transforming the products into saturated hydrocarbons of 

It should be remarked, that in several respects fatty oils and related products usually have a far less complicated character than have mineral oil products. The number of fatty acids occurring in natural fats is limited and certain structural elements, which contribute considerably to the composition of mineral oi s (cyclic compounds, branchings) hardly occur. On the other hand, phenomena such as cis-trans isomerism, al- 

The chemical and physical properties of fatty oils depend largely on the nature of the fatty acids of which they are composed. This is reflected in the methods of classification of oils and fats, which methods are mainly based on two important structural characteristics  

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