Possibilities for investigation of the oxidative behavior of food products with the RSSOT (Rapid Small Scale Oxidation Test)

Nowadays, the oxidation stability of food products plays a highly important role not only because of ongoing developments developments in shipping and transportation. In this contribution investigation possibilities for oxidative behaviour derived from applying the Rapid Small Scale Oxidation Test (RSSOT) are demonstrated. Under accelerated conditions (elevated temperature and pure oxygen pressure) the oxygen uptake of a sample is measured. Typical conditions of the method are temperatures between 60 °C – 140 °C and an initial oxygen pressure of 700 kPa. These conditions initiate a rapid oxidation process, that is monitored by recording the pressure which drops according to oxygen consumption of a sample. The respective pressure time curve gives rise to further investigation possibilities: Due to the defined oxygen volume in the closed test chamber, the oxygen consumption can be calculated. Furthermore, we observed Arrhenius behaviour with regard to the applied temperature, enabling the user to determine the activation energy of a specific oxidation process and to estimate a product’s shelf life.

Beneficially, the oxidation stability of complex food products can be investigated as a major benefit even solid samples can be measured without prior sample preparation. Application and measurement examples demonstrate the broad variety of research possibilities and the effectiveness of the method when it comes to studying the oxidative behavior of samples.

The high repeatability of the method, as well as the convenient and simple set-up and cleaning represent major advantages, allowing for fast and direct measurement of the oxidation stability for research, process and test bench control.