Solid-liquid equilibrium of triolein with fatty alcohols

Abstract

Triacylglycerols and fatty alcohols are used in the formulation of cosmetic, pharmaceutical and food products. Although information about the phase transitions of these compounds and their mixtures is frequently required for design and optimization of processes and product formulation involving these substances, these data are still scarce in the literature. In the present study, the solid-liquid phase diagrams of two binary systems composed of triolein + 1-hexadecanol and triolein + 1-octadecanol were evaluated by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and optical microscopy. The experimental data were compared with predicted data by solving the phase equilibrium equations using an algorithm implemented in MATLAB. The liquid-phase activity coefficients were calculated using the Margules equation (two- and three-suffix) and the UNIFAC model (original and modified Dortmund model). The approaches used for calculating system equilibrium allowed an accurate prediction of the liquidus line with low deviations from the experimental data.