Solid fat content determination: Comparison between pNMR and DSC techniques

Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC) has been one of the most popular thermal analysis techniques during the last two decades. The present work shows the utilization of DSC on the determination of solid fat content in fats. Solid fat content values were calculated through the partial areas of DSC heating curves. In a comparison with pulse NMR values, DSC values were generally higher than the pNMR ones. Differences between samples and the techniques themselves seems to be responsible for this fact. DSC is a fast technique on solid fat content, characteristic temperatures and phase transitions enthalpies determinations besides giving a characteristic curve of each sample.