Kinetic Analysis of Nonisothermal Differential Scanning Calorimetry of 1,3-Dipalmitoyl-2-oleoylglycerol

Abstract
The crystallization of fats has been extensively studied because of its importance in the processing of food and food ingredients. Differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) is widely used in such studies. The aim of this study was to examine the determination of kinetic parameters from nonisothermal DSC crystallization of a model fat, 1,3-dipalmitoyl-2-oleoylglycerol. We applied peak and isoconversional methods to determine activation energies and compared these techniques with a nonparametric method, which separates the temperature dependence and degree of crystallization dependence of the crystallization rate. The Johnson−Mehl−Avrami−Erofeyev−Kolmogorov (JMAEK) model provided the best fit to the data, while the temperature dependence of the rate constant was best explained by a Vogel−Fulcher relationship, where the reference temperature was the melting point of the crystallizing species. Keywords: POP; DSC; differential scanning calorimetry; crystallization; nucleation; crystallization model; activation energy; nonisothermal crystallization; nonparametric kinetic analysis; Avrami; Vogel−Fulcher; isoconversional