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Concept
Vegetable oil
Summary
Vegetable oils, or vegetable fats, are oils extracted from seeds or from other parts of fruits. Like animal fats, vegetable fats are mixtures of triglycerides. Soybean oil, grape seed oil, and cocoa butter are examples of seed oils, or fats from seeds. Olive oil, palm oil, and rice bran oil are examples of fats from other parts of fruits. In common usage, vegetable oil may refer exclusively to vegetable fats which are liquid at room temperature. Vegetable oils are usually edible.
Such oils have been part of human culture for millennia. Oils such as poppy seed, rapeseed, linseed, almond oil, sesame seed, safflower, and cottonseed were variously used since at least the Bronze Age in the Middle East. Oils extracted from plants have been used since ancient times and in many cultures. Archaeological evidence shows that olives were turned into olive oil by 6000 BCE and 4500 BCE in present-day Israel and Palestine. Babylonian mineral oil was known to be used as fuel, but there are no references to lubrication. Pliny the Elder reported that animal-derived fats such as lard were used to lubricate the axles of carts. In ancient Egypt, oils were also used during the mummification process.
Vegetable oils have been used for lighting fuel for lamps, cooking, medicine and lubrication. Palm oil has long been recognized in West and Central African countries, and European merchants trading with West Africa occasionally purchased palm oil for use as a cooking oil in Europe and it became highly sought-after commodity by British traders for use as an industrial lubricant for machinery during Britain's Industrial Revolution.
Palm oil formed the basis of soap products, such as Lever Brothers' (now Unilever) "Sunlight", and
B. J. Johnson Company's (now Colgate-Palmolive) "Palmolive," and by around 1870, palm oil constituted the primary export of some West African countries.
In 1780, Carl Wilhelm Scheele demonstrated that fats were derived from glycerol. Thirty years later Michel Eugène Chevreul deduced that these fats were esters of fatty acids and glycerol.
Official source
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Castor oil
Castor oil is a vegetable oil pressed from castor beans. It is a colourless or pale yellow liquid with a distinct taste and odor. Its boiling point is and its density is 0.961 g/cm3. It includes a mixture of triglycerides in which about 90% of fatty acids are ricinoleates. Oleic acid and linoleic acid are the other significant components. Castor oil and its derivatives are used in the manufacturing of soaps, lubricants, hydraulic and brake fluids, paints, dyes, coatings, inks, cold-resistant plastics, waxes and polishes, nylon, and perfumes.
Animal fat
Animal fats and oils are lipids derived from animals: oils are liquid at room temperature, and fats are solid. Chemically, both fats and oils are composed of triglycerides. Although many animal parts and secretions may yield oil, in commercial practice, oil is extracted primarily from rendered tissue fats from livestock animals like pigs, chickens and cows. Dairy products yield animal fat and oil products such as butter. Certain fats, such as goose fat, have a higher smoke point than other animal fats, but are still lower than many vegetable oils such as olive or avocado.
Transesterification
Transesterification is the process of exchanging the organic functional group R′′ of an ester with the organic group R' of an alcohol. These reactions are often catalyzed by the addition of an acid or base catalyst. The reaction can also be accomplished with the help of other enzymes, particularly lipases (one example is the lipase E.C.3.1.1.3). Strong acids catalyse the reaction by donating a proton to the carbonyl group, thus making it a more potent electrophile, whereas bases catalyse the reaction by removing a proton from the alcohol, thus making it more nucleophilic.