CHARACTERIZATION OF WAX SEDIMENTS IN REFINED CANOLA OILS

Turbidity components in refined canola oils were collected by filtrati on at 4 and 20-degrees-C. Major components (thin-layer chromatography) at both temperatures were wax esters (WE), hydrocarbons (HC) and tria cylglycerols (TG) while free fatty acids (FFA) and fatty alcohols (FAL ) were found in minor amounts at 4-degrees-C. WE had carbon numbers of 40 to 56 (made up of combinations of C16 to C30 alcohols and C16 to C 28 fatty acids). HC were mostly C29 and C31 with lesser amounts of C24 , C28 and C32. TG, compared to the corresponding liquid oil, still con tained C18:1 as the major component, but had less C18:2 and particular ly less C18:3 and at least two times higher levels of saturated fatty acids. The FFA were mainly long-chain C22:0, C24:0 and C20:0 (in order of amount). FAL were mainly long-chain C26:0, C28:0 and C30:0 but ran ged from C16:0 to C32:0.