Kinetics for the Autoxidation of Triacylglycerols Containing Eicosapentaenoic Acid

Abstract

The oxidative rate of three kinds of synthetic triacylglycerols (TAGs) consisting of eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and palmitic acid was measured by the induction period method to understand the mechanism for the autoxidation of TAGs containing highly unsaturated fatty acids (HUFAs) such as marine oils. The propagation rate, oxidizability, and kinetic chain length increased with the number of moles of EPA in a single TAG molecule, although the initiation rate was almost the same for all the TAG samples. These results demonstrate that the oxidative rate of EPA in TAGs was affected by the TAG structure and that EPA highly concentrated in a TAG molecule was very susceptible to free-radical oxidation.