Thermal properties of palm stearin, canola oil and fully hydrogenated soybean oil blends: Coupling experiments and modeling

• Thermal properties of canola oil, palm stearin and fully hydrogenated soybean oil blends were predicted and measured.
• Solid-liquid phase transitions of vegetable oils blends can be evaluated computationally.
• Fat-based product design can take advantage of computational tools.

In order to evaluate thermal properties of fats and oils for product design, palm stearin, canola oil and fully hydrogenated soybean oil blends were studied. The fatty acids composition (by gas chromatography), the regiospecific distribution of saturated, monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fatty acids (by Nuclear Magnetic Resonance), the softening point and thermal transitions (by differential scanning calorimetry) were measured experimentally. Iodine value and saponification value were calculated using experimental fatty acids composition. Thermodynamic modeling (Solid-liquid Equilibrium) and computational simulations of solid-liquid transitions were used to predict the Solid Fat Content (SFC) of blends with all possible mass fraction of each oil at 0 °C and 25 °C and to predict changes in heat capacity of the mixtures in the whole melting range. The computational predictions were able to identify the correlation between the amount of saturated fatty acids and melting profile, offering quantitative insights for the whole ternary diagram. The experimental DSC curves, in average, showed more peaks than the predicted curves, due to the use of equilibrium hypothesis by the model and the presence of kinetics factor in experimental DSC.