Health and Sustainability Implications of Palm Oil Substitution with Platinum-Catalyzed Hydrogenated Fats in the Food Industry
Abstract
The study conducted a comparative analysis of the quality of domestic fat and oil products obtained through hydrogenation or transesterification methods, with a focus on reducing the risk of cardiovascular diseases. By calculating the atherogenic and thrombogenic indices, which characterize the quality of lipids from palm oil and hydrogenated fats obtained to hydrogenation of sunflower oil using nickel and platinum catalysts, as well as the ratio of hypercholesterolemic fatty acids, it has been determined that the use of the transesterification method with palm oil (stearin) allows for a reduction in the trans-isomer content. However, it simultaneously creates a more severe issue of excessive saturated fatty acid content, which significantly increases the risk of both cardiovascular and oncological diseases compared to the hydrogenation method. The solution to the problem appears to involve substituting nickel catalysts with developed low-percentage platinum hydrogenation catalysts and expediting the organization of their industrial production in the country. In this work, we have also investigated the hydrogenation mechanism of sunflower oil in the presence of a nickel catalyst by applying quantum chemical calculations and HyperChem software. The results have shown the existence of strong intermolecular interactions between linoleic acid and nickel metal according to the optimized structures, molecular electrostatic maps, molecular orbitals, bond lengths and energies.