Accelerated oxidation: Comparative study of a new reactor with oxidation stability instrument

Accelerated oxidation tests, such as the determination of the induction period, increase the lipid oxidation rate by exposing a food to elevated temperatures, in the presence of excess quantities of air or oxygen. In addition to the well-founded oxidative stability index (OSI) method, an innovative and promising technique is the oxidation test (OXITEST) reactor. A new analytical method was developed with OXITEST to oxidize vegetable oils. At a preliminary stage of the investigation, the induction periods of sunflower and extra-virgin olive oil obtained by the OXITEST reactor were plotted against temperature, on the basis of the Arrhenius law; the activation energy and the frequency factor of lipid oxidation were calculated and resulted in 98.61 kJ/mol and 2.33 x 10(10) s(-1), respectively, for sunflower oil and 106.48 kJ/mol and 6.27 x 10(10) s(-1), respectively for extra-virgin olive oil. The new oxidative technique was employed to determine the induction periods of vegetable oils; the results obtained were well correlated with those achieved with OSI technology, with a Pearson correlation coefficient r = 0.9785 (p < 0.05) for oilseeds and palm oil and r = 0.9501 (p < 0.05) for extra-virgin olive oils.