History of vegetable oil hydrogenation process

Large scale chemical usage derives from the beginning of the 20th century with hydrogenation processing of mineral oils and of vegetable and animal oils.

Hydrogenation process is an important oil modification method for altering the physical and chemical properties of the oils. The complete hydrogenation converts the unsaturated fatty acids to saturated ones. The process is widely applied to the processing of vegetable oil fats.

The invention of hydrogenation is generally attributed to Sabatier at the end of the 19th century.

French chemist Paul Sabatier is considered the father of the hydrogenation process. In Sabatier’s hydrogenation process, it brought about large variety of reactions, especially the reduction of double bonds between carbon atoms to single bonds in organic substances. In 1902, a German awarded patent for Sabatier’s invention.

Liquid-phase hydrogenation was reported in a patent issued to William Normann in 1903. Wilhelm Normann was awarded a patent in Germany in 1902 and in Britain in 1903 for the hydrogenation of liquid oils. In Normann’s hydrogenation, the process converted vegetable oils, such as cotton seed oil, and also animal oils such as whale oil and fish into hard, white fats so that they could be used as lard substitute for making margarine.

In 1909 a small quantity of hydrogenated fat was delivered, admittedly of cottonseed oil, to two German margarine manufacturing plants, the first attempt to use hydrogenated fat in the foodstuffs industry.

With the introduction of the hydrogenation process in 1909, hydrogenated vegetable oil quickly replaced ‘compound’ as the preferred type of blended shortening.

In United States The Procter & Gamble Company started their commercial production of hydrogenated cottonseed oil in 1911.
History of vegetable oil hydrogenation process

History of Palm Oil

History of Palm Oil
The oil palm (Elaeis guineensis) is a native of West Africa. It is also found in Central and East Africa and Madagascar in isolated localities with a suitable rainfall. It has been traded overland, since archeological evidence indicates that palm oil was most likely available in ancient Egypt.

The British Industrial revolution created a demand for palm oil for candle making and as lubricant for machinery. In the early nineteenth century, West African farmers began supply a modest export trade, as well as producing palm oil for their own food needs. After 1900, European-run plantations were established in Central Africa and Southeast Asia, and the world trade in palm oil continued to grow steadily, reaching a level of 250,000 tones (metric tons) per annum by 1930.

The oil palm was first introduced to Southeast Asia in 1848, when four seedlings from West Africa, were planted in the botanical gardens in Java. One Belgian Engineer noticed that palms grew here more quickly and bore a richer fruit that counterpart in the Congo. This help the palm oil industry grow quickly in Sumatra and Malaya. This rapid expansion came not only because of growing confidence in oil palm but also because of the grave postwar problems of the rubber industry.

The invention of the hydrogenation process for oils and fats in 1902 created the possibility of Western employment of palm products as, for example, in the making of margarine. Yet hydrogenation was more useful for liquid oils like groundnut, palm kernel, and coconut oils than form palm oil.
History of Palm Oil