Is someone out here able to help me name these compounds?

[almar_96]

TL;DR Summary

What is the "official" chemical nomenclature for:
1) a polyester obtained from fatty acids of sunflower oil and polyglycerol
2) an amide obtained from fatty acids of sunflower oil and diethanolamine

I'm a mechanical engineer, and I've been assigned to test a series of bio-lubricants. The problem is, the person by whom I was assigned those tests backd off from our collaboration, and we were supposed to write a paper together. The tests are done, my time was wasted and here comes the problem: I have no clear idea of what exactly did I test!

All I know is that, during our discussions, they briefly mentioned that one of the lubricants was, quote "a polyester obtained from fatty acids of sunflower oil and polyglycerol", while the other was "an amide obtained from fatty acids of sunflower oil and diethanolamine".

Being a mechanical engineer, my knowledge of organic chemistry is very limited (our curriculum included only 1 semester of inorganic chemistry). I don't know how to name these compounds! I tried searching the web, and depending on how I rephrased my words, I got various results of different compounds. For instance, if I typed "polyglycerol ester of fatty acids", I got as results a powder. The substances I tested were in a liquid state of aggregation.

Could someone be kind and tell me what is the "scientific nomenclature" of these compounds? English is not even my 1st language, so this made matters even harder. Also, a few words about the processes through which they are obtained would come in very handy!

Thank you in advance! Any answer or suggestion is very welcomed!

 

[jim mcnamara]

Biology of foods is not that simple.

You have a problem - sunflower oil is not just one fatty acid. And the way the plants are cultivated and expressed, the oil content varies a LOT from sample to sample (see the comment about the distributor below) :

Sunflower oil contains approximately 15% saturated, 85% unsaturated fatty acid and consisting of 14–43% oleic and 44–75% linoleic acids in its unsaturated fatty acid content.

-- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5976617/
Oleic acid (18:1 cis 9 "omega-9") and linoleic acid (18:2 cis 9,12 "omega 6") are the most common fatty acids.

This is a list of all of the fatty acids, note the report assumes a lot of refining which tends to reduce variability in oils sold in grocery stores.:

https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/fdc-app.html#/food-details/1750349/nutrients

The names of the acids are in "nutrition speak", e.g., SFA 4:0 means four carbon Saturated Fatty Acid

You need to verify the source of the sunflower oil used - but it is going to be approximate as to acid ratios.
The distributor knows because high volume contract bakeries are really picky about oils they use. Get the lot number off the label and contact the distributor directly.

 

[almar_96]

Biology of foods is not that simple.

You have a problem - sunflower oil is not just one fatty acid. And the way the plants are cultivated and expressed, the oil content varies a LOT from sample to sample (see the comment about the distributor below) :

-- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5976617/
Oleic acid (18:1 cis 9 "omega-9") and linoleic acid (18:2 cis 9,12 "omega 6") are the most common fatty acids.

This is a list of all of the fatty acids, note the report assumes a lot of refining which tends to reduce variability in oils sold in grocery stores.:

https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/fdc-app.html#/food-details/1750349/nutrients

The names of the acids are in "nutrition speak", e.g., SFA 4:0 means four carbon Saturated Fatty Acid

You need to verify the source of the sunflower oil used - but it is going to be approximate as to acid ratios.
The distributor knows because high volume contract bakeries are really picky about oils they use. Get the lot number off the label and contact the distributor directly.

Thank you for your answer! It gave me, at least, a starting point! As for the nature of the sunflower oil, I've been told it is waste cooking oil.

 

[jim mcnamara]

One comment - eeeek! Nobody knows the content exactly because unsaturated oils are degraded by cooking temperatures. What you want is not feasible, in any practical low cost way. In other words a small portion of the oils have partially "morphed" into a long list of other things, try a search on "biodiesel".

 

[almar_96]

One comment - eeeek! Nobody knows the content exactly because unsaturated oils are degraded by cooking temperatures. What you want is not feasible, in any practical low cost way. In other words a small portion of the oils have partially "morphed" into a long list of other things, try a search on "biodiesel".

Your insight really helped a lot! I've been posting about this issue of mine on several forums, without any luck. So far, your intervention has offered me the most information, so thank you very much for taking the time to answer!