I have some info on the FA comp of Coconut oil compared with palm and canola. Firstly the FA comp varies with the variety and the season in all species.
Coco nut is mainly: Lauric 46.2% C12:0,(no double bonds) Miristic 18.6% C14:0, Palmitic 10.3% C16:0, Stearic 13.1% C18:0. Palm (there are two main species with several cultivars) C12:0- 0.2%, C14:0- 1.0%, C16:0-39.7%, C18:0- 4.5%, C18:1-42.5%,(one double bond) C18:2-11.5%,(two double bonds) C18:3- 0.2%,(three double bonds) C20:0- 0.4%, C22:0- 0.2%. Canola (Ebony)typical C16:0- 4.0%, C16:1- 0.3%, C18:0- 2.0%, C18:1-62.3%, C18:2-18.3%, C18:3- 9.6%, C20:0- 0.7%, C20:1- 1.3%, C20:2- 0.1%, C22:0- 0.6%, C22:1- 0.1%, C24:0- 0.2%, C24:1- 0.2%, Sat 7.5% It seems that the average chain length of coconut fatty acids is shorter and has very few double bonds compared with palm or canola. Nearly half of the esters from Coconut may be expected to derive from a straight chain 12 carbons long. Esters from palm oil may derive from carbon chains that range from 16 to 18 many with double bonds. Canola esters may be derived from chains with one or two double bonds that are predominantly 18 carbons in length. I guess that means that we may expect that esters derived from Coconut would be significantly shorter than esters from some other sources- that should mean a lower melting point. The lack of double bonds may affect the melting properties as well, I suspect that hydrogen bonding may be more prevalent in esters with double bonds. Of course with my memory I could have that backwards, just seems logical. Regards Harry Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Please do NOT send "unsubscribe" messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
