The lipid profiles and fatty acid composition of roes from two common fresh water fish viz., rohu (Labeo rohita) and murrel (Channa striatus) have been studied. The dehydrated fish egg was ground to fine powder and extracted with chloroform/methanol (2:1, v/v) to recover the total lipid in 20.2 and 22.7% on dry weight basis. The fat free meal was found to contain 70 and 58% protein in rohu and murrel, respectively. The total lipids were separated into neutral lipids, glycolipids and phospholipids using silica gel column chromatography and found to be 43.8, 72.9% neutral lipids; 12.7, 9.4% glycolipids and 43.5, 17.7% phospholipids in rohu and murrel roes, respectively. The fatty acid compositions of all lipid classes were analysed by GC and GC-MS. Among the saturated fatty acids, hexadecanoic acid (16:0) was found to be 30.2 and 30.4% respectively in rohu and murrel total lipid. n-3 Fatty acids namely eicosapentaenoic acid (20:5, EPA) was observed to an extent of 1.5 and 0.6% and docosahexaenoic acid (22:6, DHA) to an extent of 11.8 and 6.1% respectively in rohu and murrel total lipids. Stearic acid (18:0) was also seen at 12.2 and 6% respectively in rohu and murrel lipids. The fatty acid composition was found to be almost similar in all the lipid classes. The study indicated that rohu and murrel fish egg lipids are good sources for polyunsaturated n-3 fatty acids.

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Ether lipids have biological applications which would dissipated as an important constituent in cell membranes. These are mostly found in animal tissues and rare in plant origin. Alk-1'-enyl ethers are class of ether lipid forming aldehydes on cleavage of ether bonds. The present study enrolled the presence of aldehyde in unsaponifiable matter of rice bran oil (RBO) and hence the identification of source of aldehydes in RBO was conducted. With respect to the earlier reports the investigation turned to major lipid constituents such as triacylglycerols, diacylglycerols etc. Using the column chomatographic method lipid fractions are separated, recolumned, purified and analyzed by spectrochemical methods such as FT-IR, ¹HNMR, ¹³CNMR, Mass spectrometry and confirmed the presence of ether lipids. The sn-2 position was confirmed by enzymatic hydrolysis using pancreatic lipase. Moreover the formation of aldehyde from these ether lipids was also confirmed by spectrometric methods.

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The chemical composition of the essential oil of Cacalia hastata L. var. orientalis has been investigated by GC and GC-MS. Important odor-active compounds were detected in the oil by GC-MS/Olfactometry (GC-MS/O) and aroma extraction dilution analysis (AEDA). Fifty-one compounds were identified in the oil by GC-MS. The major components of the essential oil were (+)-(4S)-cacalohastine (48.8%), germacrene D (11.4%), and myrcene (10.2%). GC-MS/O and AEDA showed that γ-terpinene, hexanol, and p-mentha-2,4(8)-diene were the most characteristic aroma compounds of the oil. It seems that these components are responsible for the fresh odor of C. hastata L. var. orientalis.

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Two different methods for determining the levels of glycidol fatty acid esters (GEs) in edible oil-the German official indirect method and the direct LC-MS method—are compared. In some cases, the indirect method showed lower GE levels than the direct method. This was investigated using model studies, which revealed two possible causative factors during the acid treatment of the indirect method: (1) incomplete elimination of GE in oil that was high in GEs initially and (2) generation of GEs and/or its relevant compounds in oil that was rich in partial acylglycerol. Both these factors contributed to the subsequent underestimation of GE levels. The above technical limitations of the indirect method found in the present study has led to the inference that the direct method can more precisely determine the GE levels for a wider range of fats and oil products than the indirect method.

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Novel anionic heterogemini surfactants have been synthesized from two kinds of unsaturated fatty acids (oleic acid and petroselinic acid). The hydrocarbon chain is covalently bound to the terminal carbonyl group of the unsaturated fatty acids and hydrophilic headgroups (i.e., sulfonic and hydroxyl groups) are introduced to the cis double bond. The aqueous solution properties of the surfactants synthesized here have been studied on the basis of static/dynamic surface tension, conductivity, fluorescence, and dynamic light scattering (DLS) data. We have mainly focused on the following two factors that may significantly impact the aqueous solution properties of the surfactants: one is hydrocarbon chain length and the other is molecular symmetry. The first key result from our current study is that increased hydrocarbon chain length results in a closely packed monolayer film at the air/aqueous solution interface, even at low concentrations as a result of the increased hydrophobicity of the longer chain analogue. We have previously observed a similar trend when aqueous solution properties of oleic acid-based phosphate-type heterogemini surfactants were studied. The second key finding of our current research is that increased molecular symmetry results in greater surface activities (which include lower aqueous surface tension and greater molecular packing at the air/aqueous solution interface). In addition, it seems likely that the size of molecular assemblies spontaneously formed in bulk solution decreases when the molecular symmetry increases. These results suggest that the symmetric analogue provides greater hydrophobic environments, although the exact reason for this is not yet known.

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Reactions of α-vinylbenzyl alcohol with other alcohols using iodine as a catalyst were investigated. The corresponding cinnamyl ethers were obtained as products. This suggested that α-vinylbenzyl alcohol was converted to cinnamyl ethers via 1-phenylallyl cation. Cinnamyl ethyl ether was obtained in 75% yield by the reaction of α-vinylbenzyl alcohol and ethanol in acetonitrile with iodine under the following conditions: temperature = 50 °C, molar ratio of α-vinylbenzyl alcohol:ethanol:iodine = 1:3.0:0.2, and time period = 6 h. Generally, the yields of the reactions using primary alcohols were higher than those using secondary and tertiary alcohols. Ether interchange also occurred by the reaction of α-vinylbenzyl alcohol and iodine, but proceeded smoothly only when an allyl group was used as the other substituent of the starting ether.

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Novel micro swirl mixers were developed to synthesize nanoparticles, and the effect of their mixing performance on the characteristics of the synthesized nanoparticles was determined. The results were compared with those obtained using simple T-shaped mixers under the same reaction conditions. The synthesis of NiO, whose characteristics depend on the mixing performance of the mixer, was chosen as a model reaction. Initial investigations highlighted that the average particle size decreased from 32 to 23 to 20 nm as the inner diameter of the swirl mixers was decreased from 3.2 mm (Swirl mixer, SM-3.2) to 0.8 mm (Micro swirl mixer, MSM-0.8) to 0.5 mm (Micro swirl mixer, MSM-0.5), respectively. On the other hand, a similar decrease in the average particle size from 34 to 20 nm was observed with a decrease in the inner diameter of the T-shaped mixers from 1.3 mm (Tee union, T-1.3) to 0.3 mm (Micro tee union, T-0.3), respectively. Further, narrow particle size distributions were observed with a decrease in the inner diameter of each mixer. Furthermore, a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation indicated an excellent mixing mechanism, which contributed to the improvement in the heating rate and the formation of nanoparticles of smaller size with a narrow particle size distribution. The result presented here indicates that the micro swirl mixers produce high-quality metal oxide nanoparticles. The size of the obtained particles with improved size distributions was comparable to that of the particles obtained using the T-shaped mixers, although the inner diameter of the swirl mixers was larger. Therefore, preliminary evidence suggests that the swirl flow mixers have the ability to produce rapid and homogeneous fluid mixing, thus controlling the particle size.

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In this study, we investigated the antioxidant components of three types of colored rice bran -forbidden rice, red rice and green rice- obtained from rice in which the pigment layer had been removed at milling yields of 90%–100% and 80%–90%. An evaluation of the effects of 1,1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) radical scavenging activity revealed that rice bran obtained from forbidden rice at milling yields of 90%–100% and 80%–90% and rice bran obtained from red rice at milling yields of 90%–100% showed favorable antioxidant activity. The antioxidant components were confirmed to be 3,4-dihydroxy methyl benzoate and p-methoxyphenol and they influence the antioxidant activity of the three types of colored rice bran.

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