Evaluation of vegetable oil rancidity by headspace gas chromatographic analysis

Several commercial cottonseed, corn and rapeseed oils were stored at with daily exposure of fluorescent light for 12 hours and evaluated their rancidity by headspace gas chromatographic analysis of pentanal and hexanal. The data of gas chromatographic analysis was compared with organoleptic flavor evaluation. For headspace gas chromatographic analysis, the volatile compounds were recovered by porous polymer trap and flushed into a fused silica capillary column at . Twenty-three GC peaks were identified on the basis of relative retention time of reference compounds and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. The results showed that the contents of pentanal and hexanal were linearly increased during storage. A very simple linear relationship was found between organoleptic flavor scores and amounts of two volatile compounds with very high correlation coefficient. This results suggested the possible implication of pentanal and hexanal as an quality index for rancidity evaluation of cottonseed, corn and rapeseed oils.