The detectives speed up their method for oil determination in oilseeds
Chapter 6
📁 Case overview: The five detectives spent a long day trying to compliantly determine oil in oilseeds in a very hands-on client case. But Shallot Holmes was left displeased that although they performed their experiments compliantly, they had failed their customer’s requirement for speed. On day two of this challenging task, the detectives meet again to see if they can perform economic continuous extraction for oil determination in soybean samples faster, but with results that still correspond to expected values from reference material.
The next morning, Shallot Holmes, Miss Mapple, Lieutenant Cornlumbo and Nancy Beef are sitting on the table yawning and looking desolately at each other. With a loud bang, Eggcule Poirot walks into the room, late, unbothered and smirking at his colleagues while announcing he has found a solution to their client’s need for speed.
Excitedly, he summarizes the case they have been assigned and their efforts so far. The five private investigators were given the task to quickly and compliantly determine oil in oilseeds . They had settled on using soybean samples and economic continuous extraction for oil determination in these types of oilseeds. So far, they had successfully managed to compliantly reach results within the expected values. But the process had taken a whole 5 hours. That certainly did not meet the client’s requirement for speed.
Eggcule Poirot insists on using an automated fat extractor and suggests how to optimize the method parameters for oil determination to cut down the extraction times. He is certain that they will be able to substantially reduce the processing time from 5 hours to 1 hour.
Shallot Holmes watches his colleague and shakes his head, half in amazement, half in amusement. He asks him for more specifics.
Eggcule Poirot quickly turns on his laptop and draws the attention of his colleagues to the following table with method optimization for oil determination in oilseeds:
| Parameter | Value | Heating Level |
|---|---|---|
| Solvent | Petroleum ether | |
| Extraction | 60 min | 6 |
| SmartDrying | on | |
| Solvent Volume (mL) | 70 |
Miss Mapple wonders if these parameters and shorter method time would not adversely affect the compliancy of their oil determination.
Shallot Holmes bites on his pen and announces there is only one way to see what will happen. Experiment. The five agree to repeat AOCS method Ac 3-44 with the same AOCS certified reference material samples but with the parameters proposed by Eggcule Poirot.
The five sleuths head into the lab. A little over an hour later, they meet again at their roundtable to look over the new data.
| Weight (m) of sample | Weight (m) of beaker | Weight (m) total | Oil% | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sample 1 | 1.9882 | 110.8778 | 111.2893 | 20.76 |
| Sample 2 | 2.0432 | 110.8659 | 111.2874 | 20.63 |
| Sample 3 | 1.9880 | 110.9521 | 111.3602 | 20.43 |
| Sample 4 | 2.0562 | 110.4360 | 111.8598 | 20.61 |
| Sample 5 | 1.9850 | 109.7760 | 111.1858 | 20.64 |
| Sample 6 | 2.0116 | 111.1160 | 111.5336 | 20.76 |
| Mean value [%] | 20.64 | |||
| rsd [%] | 0.60 |
And again, as before they correct the oil content of the soybeans sample to the moisture content of the beans sample because they had used a pre-dried sample for extraction. The results of their oil determination were as follows:
| Value | |
|---|---|
| F | 20.64% |
| Moisture desired | 6.12% |
| Moisture content of ground test sample | 0.20% |
| Oil, desired moisture base | 19.50% |
The detectives are highly pleased as they make the following graph out of the combined data from their two-day long oil determination experiment:
The day before , they were able to perform oil determination in a soybeans sample according to AOCS Ac 3-44 using an automated fat extractor and to obtain reliable and reproducible results. The determined oil content of their certified reference material sample corresponded well to the declared value with relatively low standard deviations.
And Eggcule Poirot seems to have been proven correct. The AOCS method AC-3 44 requires a Twisselmann extraction of 5 hours. But with Eggcule Poirot’s parameters, the team was able to reduce the extraction time to 1 hour while achieving equally reliable and reproducible results, that are in accordance with the specified value of the reference material!
Shallot Holmes is finally satisfied that they can present their findings to their client and that the customer will be happy with the results. Nancy Beef is very hungry by now and insists on getting some very oily fries! The rest agree with her and they head out to a local burger joint. There, happy, relaxed and marveling at his success, Eggcule Poirot finally confesses that besides reading up a bit with additional resources he discovered himself, such as a whitepaper on compliant oil determination in oilseeds , he also watched a useful webinar on quick and compliant fat determination , and this helped him reach his solution. Shallot Holmes laughs approvingly. Who knew such an egghead could be so clever…