Determinación preliminar de productos de degradación formados por auto-oxidación del extracto lipídico de Roystonea regia.

The unsaturated fatty acids (FA) are degraded generating a high number of compounds, hence the study of this phenomenon resulting from high complexity. From the Cuban royal palm fruits, a lipid extract mainly compound by a mixture of free FA between 8 and 18 carbon atoms, with possible applications as nutraceutic and/or medicine is obtained. In this mixture, the presence of unsaturated FA like oleic and linoleic, could provoke autoxidation processes that affect their efficacy and safety. Taking to account that autoxidation products from R. regia lipid extract are unknown until now, in this paper its degradation products formed by oxidation, photolysis and thermolysis were determined. The organoleptic characteristics, peroxide (PV) and tiobarbituric acid values (TBAV), and contents of conjugated dienes (CD) and FA contents were determined in samples of the extract subjected to oxidation (hydrogen peroxide), photolysis (UV light) and thermolysis (80 °C and 185 °C), and their results were compared with those of a sample without degradation. It was determined that the oxidation was the one that caused the biggest degradation in the unsaturated FA, as well as the biggest PV, while the thermolysis went the one that bore to bigger contents of TBAV and CD. The above-mentioned evidences that the imposed stress conditions achieved the degradation of the extract, in a similar way that its happens in the vegetable oils with low contents of polyunsaturated FA, achieving preliminarily determine, so the main groups of compounds generated from the forced degradation of Roystonea regia lipid extract. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]