The composition of fats

Principle
Fats play an important role in a healthy diet. What is to be understood by saturated and unsaturated fatty acids? Fats are esters of glycerol and various fatty acids. Alkali splits fats into their constituents, glycerol and fatty acids. Fatty acids form soaps with sodium ions. Glycerol is a trivalent alcohol, which can be oxidized to aldehyde and then gives a positve reaction with Schiff's reagent. The two types of compounds from which fat is composed are determined in this experiment.

Learning objectives

•  Composition and properties of fats in foods

Benefits

• Easy teaching and efficient learning by using interactive experimentation PHYWE-Software
• Experiment is part of a complete solution set with experiments for the topic Food Chemistry matched with international curriculum: all topics are covered