ALTERATION OF STEROLS AND STERYL ESTERS IN VEGETABLE-OILS DURING INDUSTRIAL REFINING

Steryl esters of fatty acids have been isolated from vegetable oils by rapid chromatography on a short column of silica gel and quantitative ly determined by HPLC on RP-18 columns using an evaporative light scat tering detector that was calibrated with beta-sitosteryl oleate as ext ernal standard. The steryl esters isolated according to the above tech nique from corn, soybean, and rapeseed oils at different stages of ind ustrial refining have been analyzed for their constituent sterols and fatty acids by GC. Moreover, the total sterols were analyzed by GC. In all three oils a substantial part of the sterols occurred as steryl e sters. Some alterations in the composition of the constituent sterols and fatty acids of the steryl esters were observed during industrial p rocessing.