Colourimetry Titration for Quantifying Free Fatty Acids in Cooking Oil

Most palm oil processing mills in Malaysia use traditional wet chemical analysis as a standard reference measurement method to determine free fatty acids (FFA) as prescribed by the Malaysian Palm Oil Board (MPOB). FFA is a quality indicator of the oil produced. A higher level of FFA is associated with lower oil quality because it leads to high rancidity which is harmful to health. However, FFA quantification analysis that uses manual titration method relies on human observation to detect the colour changes during the titration process. Thus, the traditional method is prone to inaccuracy due to differences in colour perception leading to inconsistent values of FFA measurement results. In this paper, a proof of concept of colourimetry chemical titration method has been introduced and investigated for its feasibility. The results show the new method can detect and quantify the colour changes with the correct FFA value. The FFA value obtained using the colourimetry titration is comparable to the manual titration. The results show the colourimetry titration method gives 90.3% accuracy compared to the standard manual titration.