Thursday, January 7, 2010

What is the chemical formula of vegetable oil?

Can anybody help me to find the chemical formula of vegetable oil?What is the chemical formula of vegetable oil?
The terminology applied to fats is based on the chemical structure of their molecules. Fats and oils belong to a group of biological substances called lipids. Lipids are biological chemicals that do not dissolve in water. They serve a variety of functions in organisms, such as regulatory messengers (hormones), structural components of membranes, and as energy storehouses. Fats and oils generally function in the latter capacity. Fats differ from oils only in that they are solid at room temperature, while oils are liquid. Fats and oils share a common molecular structure, which is represented by the formula below.


This structural formula shows that fats and oils contain three ester functional groups. Fats and oils are esters of the tri-alcohol, glycerol (or glycerine). Therefore, fats and oils are commonly called triglycerides, although a more accurate name is triacylglycerols. One of the reactions of triglycerides is hydrolysis of the ester groups.





I cant draw the structure here.


pl. click:


http://scifun.chem.wisc.edu/chemweek/Fat鈥?/a>


(Stearic acid (IUPAC systematic name: octadecanoic acid) is one of the useful types of saturated fatty acids that comes from many animal and vegetable fats and oils. It is a waxy solid, and its chemical formula is CH3(CH2)16COOH. Its name comes from the Greek word stear, which means tallow. The term stearate is applied to the salts and esters of stearic acid.)

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