Terminology Applied to Fatty Acids
The vegetable drying oils are composed of esters of fatty acids. The fatty acids are predominently unsaturated, meaning that they have carbon atoms with bonds available for combination with oxygen. It is the reaction with oxygen that cause the oil to dry. Some terms describing chemical bonds that are applied to fatty acids are defined in the following table.
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Saturated | All carbon atoms are linked by single bonds. |
| Unsaturated | Some carbon atoms are linked by double or triple bonds. |
| Isolated | More than one set of unstaurated bonds between carbon atoms groups that are separated from each other by moe than one carbon atom. |
| Conjugated | More than one set of unstaurated bonds between alternate sets of carbon atoms groups. |