Hydrogenation of vegetable oils minimizing harmful trans acids and enhancing beneficial conjugated linoleic acids using a novel generation of supported catalysts

植物油必须通过氢化、酯交换或分馏进行改性，以获得用于各种食品的所需技术特性和氧化稳定性。虽然催化氢化涉及一些天然存在的顺式双键的异构化以形成反式脂肪酸（TFA），例如对健康有害的反式脂肪酸，但是在动物瘤胃中的氢化产生反式脂肪酸，例如共轭亚油酸（CLA），其是有益的和治疗性的。即将出台的反式脂肪酸标签法规引起了食品工业和油脂供应商的关注。大部分植物油的改性只能通过氢化经济地硬化。一种策略，持有潜力，以满足即将到来的标签法规的要求，反式脂肪酸是重新审视传统的氢化过程中，应用催化剂和材料科学的最新发展，设计催化剂的能力，以控制最终产品的氢化反应。这将主要涉及在作为载体的纳米结构材料上开发反式异构化催化剂，以引导部分反式异构化形成CLA，导致不良反式酸的最小化和良好反式酸的最大化，并产生可接受的饱和脂肪酸。对该过程的进一步改进将使不良转化率降低到可以忽略不计的水平。具体而言，该研究将涉及开发纳米结构材料负载的新型催化剂，使用向日葵油进行氢化/异构化反应和催化剂稳定性研究，以及评估经济上重要的菜籽油氢化/异构化新型催化剂的性能。该项目的收益对于Biscuit-Leclerc Ltd提供更健康的食品并提高其盈利能力以及加拿大油菜籽和种植者，食用油加工行业以及整个农业食品业务都具有重要意义。

Vegetable oils must be modified by hydrogenation, interesterification or fractionation to achieve the desired technical properties and oxidative stability for use in various food products. While catalytic hydrogenation involves isomerization of some of the naturally occurring cis double bonds to form trans fatty acids (TFA) such as elaidic acid which are detrimental to health, hydrogenation in the rumen of animals produces trans fatty acids such as conjugated linoleic acids (CLA) which are beneficial and therapeutic. The impending labeling regulation on TFA is preoccupying the attention of the food industry and fats and oils suppliers. Modification of bulk of the vegetable oils can only be hardened economically through hydrogenation. A strategy that holds potential to meet the requirements of the impending labeling regulation on trans fatty acids is to revisit the conventional hydrogenation process by applying recent developments in catalysts and material science to design catalysts with capabilities to control the end products of hydrogenation reaction. This would involve primarily the development of bimetallic catalysts on nanostructured materials as supports in order to direct part of the trans isomerization towards the formation of CLA, leading to minimization of bad trans and maximization of good trans acids, with acceptable saturated fatty acid production. Further refinements to the process would enable the reduction of bad trans to negligible levels. Specifically, the research would involve the development of novel catalysts supported on nanostructured materials, studies on hydrogenation/isomerization reactions and catalyst stability using sunflower oil, and evaluation of the performance of the novel catalyst for hydrogenation/ isomerization of the economically important canola oil. The benefits that would accrue from this project are highly significant to Biscuit-Leclerc Ltd for providing healthier foods and improving its profitability and to the Canadian canola and growers, the edible oil processing industry as well as Agri-Food Business overall.