Qixin Zhong1, Tonglin Li1, Weinong Zhang2, and Roy Zhenhu Lee3. (1) Department of Food Science and Technology, University of Tennessee, 2509 River Drive, 115B McLeod Building, Knoxville, TN 37996-4539, (2) Food Science and Technology, University of Tennessee, 2509 River Drive, 115B McLeod Building, Knoxville, TN 37996-4539, (3) Johnson Matthey, Inc., 435 Devon Park Drive, Wayne, PA 19087
The edible oils and fats industry is still looking for novel solutions that can reduce the unsaturation of lipids and at the same time maintain low concentrations of trans- and saturated fatty acids. In this work, we adapted a simple method to synthesize amorphous alloy nanocatalysts of nickel and boron (Ni-B), which was used in literature to hydrogenate unsaturated hydrocarbons and the hydrogenated products were reported to have a low concentration of trans-isomers. Soybean oil was hydrogenated with a group of Ni-B alloy catalysts synthesized at various conditions. We report that some Ni-B alloy catalysts showed activities similar to conventional nickel and palladium catalysts, while some did not have activities. The trans-fat contents in products hydrogenated by Ni-B were approximately half of those when the commercial nickel catalyst was used. The selectivities of Ni-B catalysts were also different from the commercial nickel catalyst. We further showed that, although the hydrogenation reaction rate was strongly affected by reaction conditions, the production of trans-fat was primarily affected by the catalyst and secondarily by the studied reaction conditions. Because of the simplicity to synthesize amorphous catalysts, this work may lead to a group of novel nanocatalysts that integrate different functions of various transition metals to synergistically reduce the formation of both trans- and saturated fatty acids in partially hydrogenated edible oils and fats.