Bruker Optics

Application Note AN # 216

Trans Fatty Acids

Determination of trans fatty acids in edible fat and oil Experimental

products.
In most naturally occurring vegetable fats and oils, double
bonds are found in their cis configuration. The isomers,
however, are commonly produced during the hydrogena-
tion process used to produce fats for the formulation of
margarine, shortenings and other hardened fat products.
Animal and marine fats, on the other hand, may contain
measurable amounts of naturally occurring trans isomers.
trans fatty acids are of increasing concern to nutritionists
Nine standard samples were prepared using trielaidin and
triolein. The standards had trans contents of 0.5, 1, 3, 5,
10, 20, 30, 40 and 50%. A TENSOR FT-IR spectrometer
equipped with a DTGS detector and a temperature con-
trolled single bounce horizontal ATR unit with a zinc selenide
crystal was used for these measurements. The single
bounce ATR unit was heated to 68C and approximately 50 l
of sample was used for analysis. 64 scans were collected at
Figure 1

and the medical community due to their association with

various metabolic disorders and heart disease. Under new
guidelines from the U.S. Food & Drug Administration, food
manufacturers will be required to include trans-fatty acids
on product labels by 2006. The trans content, which was
previously only an industrial process control parameter, is
now becoming a legal labeling requirement and effectively
force processors to analyze for the trans content.

In this note, a spectroscopic method for isolated trans

content determination is outlined, which follows the AOCS
official method Cd 14d-99. This method is applicable to the
accurate determination of isolated trans double bonds in FT-IR absorption spectra (1040-900 cm -1) of the calibration standards
natural or processed oils and fats with trans levels equal to ranging between 0.5 and 50% trans content.
or greater than about 0.8%.
a resolution of 4 cm -1 for each spectrum. Triolein was used the standard deviation of difference of repeatability was
as a reference background material for the calibration stan- 0.2% trans.
dards while a trans-free sample was used as a reference
background material for unknown samples. The TENSOR Automation of the measurement is an important require-
spectrometer was chosen for the experiment for its both ment for the QC laboratory. Therefore, the whole analysis
Mid-IR and NIR capabilities. An NIR method could be devel- procedure was implemented in our user-friendly OPUS/
oped using the same instrument for on-line trans analysis. LAB software, which not only performs the measurement,
but also automatically performs the analysis of unknown
Quantitative analysis samples.
The isolated trans double bond has a unique C-H deforma-
tion absorption band with a maximum at about 966 cm -1. Figure 2
This band can be observed in the spectra of all compounds
containing an isolated trans group, while it is not observed
in the spectra of the corresponding cis and saturated com-
pounds. Measurement of the intensity of this absorption
band under analytically controlled conditions is the basis for
a quantitative method for the determination of isolated trans
content.

In this method, the calibration spectra were ratioed against

trans-free triolein while the oil samples to be analyzed were
ratioed against a similar reference oil that is free of trans
groups. Thus the contributions of triglyceride absorptions
Trans content calibration curve. R 2=99.98 %, SDDa=0.5% trans,
to the trans peak and the sloping background are elimi-
SDDr=0.2% trans
nated. The peak areas of the calibration standards under
the 966 cm -1 band were integrated electronically between
990 and 945 cm -1 and then plotted versus the % trans
content (Figure 2). The calculated linear regression equation
was then used to predict the % trans content of unknown
samples. The OPUS/QUANT 1 linear regression function
was used to simplify the calibration. The standard deviation
of difference of accuracy was found to be 0.5% trans while

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