Hydrogenation: transform liquid oil into solid fat

Learn the science behind the buzzwords surrounding saturated, unsaturated, omega-3 and trans fats, and see a demonstration of hydrogenation.

[@mahejeah]

One day you'll be like, "today I made a self-sustaining fusion reactor, stopped global warming and world hunger, and then I turned myself into pure energy, and now I'll talk to you through an oscilloscope. Okay, see you next time. Bye!"

[@pocket83]

7:22 Look closely! You can see the hexane gas pouring out of the beaker if you look at its beak. Thanks for another top-quality video.

[@insightfool]

Man Ben. I can't tell you how many times I am researching a topic and wind up finding your fantasticly thorough instructional/tutorials! Thank you again.

[@insightfool]

+Applied Science The only thing I didn't see was wondering if there are chemical ways to hydrogenate.

[@AppliedScience]

+Cere Mony Thanks. I've definitely had the experience of searching for help with a project, and finding a coworker's or my own stuff. It's kind of frustrating and funny at the same time.

[@coryscamihorn1811]

I love it when carbon and palladium get intimate, really does it for me.

[@JordanV]

really likes the thicc spread

[@minutemaidification]

Down with the thiccness

[@RimstarOrg]

Excellent! Seeing it at the molecular level makes it all clear for me. Thanks!

[@RealHogweed]

besides being less expensive, another advantage of saturated fatty acid is that their single bonds are much more resistant to oxidation than double bonds, so they don't go rancid as fast as unsaturated fats.

[@zoeydeu2261]

The food industry also bleaches the hydrogenated fat afterwards to give it a nicer appearance (as good as filtering may be, it doesn't completely render the transfat white). For margarines they use to add yellow coloring to mimick the look of butter

[@stevenalex4059]

Last time i dealt with chemsitry was like five years ago when i did my A level examination n had decided it just wasnt my thing. But i discovered your channel and has been binge watching it and it reminded me of my reason why i'd pursued it in the first place. thank you for making these videos!

[@eljesus788]

the hydrogenated part was cool. the explanation about that mono, poly, trans, omega fats was the clearest ive herd.

[@Afrotechmods]

Excellent video. I really liked how you explained how the molecular structure relates to solid/liquid at different temps.

[@unperrier5998]

Well did he explain why saturated fat become liquid at higher temperature? I missed that part.

[@JodBronson]

@@unperrier5998 - *Here, the best answer in the world and EASY too... Temperature = Radiation. The higher the radiation, the higher the heat which turns into what is known as 'Electron(s)'. Through "Electrons", then come what is known as Ionic Bond. Then too many electrons, IT separates the bonds and that is how IT becomes "Liquid". Basically, "Elections" wiggles the molecules apart.

[@Cylindropuntia]

This video is so well put together. Thank you Ben.

[@changolord93]

What a saint I’ve been looking for a video like this all morning

[@Jim361tx]

Best explanation of saturated and unsaturated fat i have ever seen... Thanks

[@liveandskint]

Brilliant! Thank you for showing us this process.

[@ChrisB257]

Nice job Ben - as usual I learn something from every video you make.

[@monto39]

Really wish I found these food sci videos when they came out. Great explanations for hydrogenated oil and trans fats

[@ulysse8182]

best video on the topic I've seen yet, thank you !!

[@MrCarlsonsLab]

Another great Video Ben! Keep it up! It's been to long since the last. Take care.

[@arunramesh8133]

Wonderful demonstration with the related theory!

[@crystalholder2213]

This is fantastic!! , Well done, and since I am a visual learner it has stuck in my head. Saturated fats are much better for the body.

[@dailygratitudes1890]

This demonstration and explation is fantastic! Truely fantastic. You really got to the core of the issue about why saturated fat might be bad for your health. And showing the process of hydrogenation with your experimental setup was phenomenal. Wow. Thank you for the learning.

[@heloisaheng3189]

No, saturated fat is good

[@didgitalpunk]

wow! thanks a lot Mr! I learned a lot of stuff today all thanks to you! keep making awesome videos, you're a really good teacher!

[@tamasmihaly1]

Such a wonderful learning experience. I really appreciate this guy.

[@hw9876]

Thank you so much for the on-paper explanations. That really helped me understand.

[@markbell9742]

Hi Ben: Great demonstration and explanation. I liked your low pressure compensator/monitor glove setup; that's a great way to be able to maintain and monitor a slight positive pressure on an experiment and not to pop stoppers, tubing, etc. off your line. For a setup requiring a bit more purity you could exchange the glove for a thin viton diaphragm or better a small stainless steel bellows. In addition to our evolutionary preference for saturation it also gives produces, as you said a spreadable, consistency and the best example I can think of is peanut butter where hydrogenated fats are added to make it spreadable and so the oil won't separate opposed to the "natural" peanut butter that's a bit "loose." Cheers, Mark

[@AppliedScience]

Mmmm, peanut butter. Good example!

[@ThingEngineer]

Brilliantly informative and well explained! Thank you Ben. If we could just trick our taste buds/brain into thinking a cucumber slice is a french fry we wouldn't have to worry about this at all.

[@Matt-uf2nc]

Excellent video! Please put out more stuff like this!

[@mathieu1341]

Hi Ben! Thanks for all your great videos! I've learned so much! Subscribed forever!! Cheers!

[@bain5872]

Very very interesting! Thanks for illustrating a process that I knew very little about.

[@edgeeffect]

I love the analogy of tree-branches verses neatly stacked boards.... And a great simplification as to why unsaturated are better for your health.

[@unperrier5998]

too bad because saturated fat are better for the health than unsaturated. This is due to oxidation of the double bond which turns any oil into free radicals within hours!

[@laureamouroux1394]

Very clear and understandable, thank you for this video!

[@LukeBeacon]

Great video mate! One of the most impressive like/dislike ratios I've ever seen! 1k+ to 1!

[@revolutiongames2004]

Hydrogen gas? Check. Hexane? Check. Palladium? Check. Ballon? Na man.

[@googull2201]

wtf is Ballon?

[@johnanders8861]

Goo Gull I’m dying😂😂😂

[@diceblue6817]

ben looks like the kind of guy that has a lot of balloons on hand, but is always using them for tricks and fun, and just when he turns on the camera he realizes the re-order of 200 party balloons hasn't arrived yet

[@SadamFlu]

Thank you Ben! That made a lot of sense!

[@emf4kv]

Thanks for the clear explanation. Great Video!!!

[@TheAmusingMe]

Excellent video, thank you so much for sharing!

[@liliwest6877]

Awesome, we were studying this today at school and your video helped me to understand some concepts. Thanks a lot! (:

[@spiritandtruth246]

This was quite useful!! Science simplified. Appreciated.

[@cybertwingo]

Man... I love your channel.

[@JuliusUnique]

I learned so much just from this video! thanks so much!

[@manofohmchemicalcreations1983]

If I remember right, you can use a glass syringe with glass wool packed in it followed by celite to better filter out the catalyst. Essentially just pressure filtration through a thicker and finer filter.you can have it before or after the injection port on the syringe. A heated centrifuge would probably work better for recovery though.

[@ThingsWhichArentWork]

Another awesome video... and now I know what Hydrogenated Vegetable Oil is :) - Thank you ever so much and keep the vids coming. :)

[@kermichemgp]

you are genius man i need to learn a lot from you especially from lab techniques

[@EMandMORE]

Terrific job. Thank you

[@martinsarrionandia84]

Amazing Explanation. Thank you!

[@MrMatte0000]

Awesome. Love your videos.

[@tom_something]

Food scientist Alton Brown talked about types of fats in an episode of "Good Eats", and he used balloons to illustrate saturation. It was a mind-expanding experience for me, because I finally saw the relationship between electricity and chemistry. The big hydrogen balloons repelled each other. Well really, they had a radius, and since two balloons can't overlap in three-dimensional space, their latex borders push against one another. But this is analogous to hydrogen ions repelling one another, which is just a phenomenon of electric fields and like-charged particles. The even distribution of hydrogen ions along a saturated fatty acid results in an overall straight line. (A zig-zag, but when you zoom out, it has a definite origin and destination trajectory that are 180 degrees apart.) But when he popped a balloon, it showed there was an opportunity, or rather electrical incentive, for the whole thing to bend. The side with more hydrogen ions took the "outside" of this bend as they repelled each other. Or perhaps more accurately, the side with the missing hydrogen ion became shorter because there was less repulsion. This makes it a little more complicated for the triglycerides to get into inter-molecular formation, and with the kinetic distraction of heat, it's even more difficult. Meaning the threshold for the temperature at which the molecules can line up, its "solid temperature tolerance" if you will, goes down. I know this is very basic stuff, but I didn't really get it until I saw that visualization. It's like that game "Perfection", where there's a timer and you have to put all the shapes into their respective slots. When the timer goes off, the whole apparatus pops up and makes the pieces go everywhere. So to win, you have to put the pieces where they go before that happens. Saturation of fats is like reducing the variety of pieces, making it easier to put them where they go, while increasing the temperature is like speeding up the timer, making it harder to do that. And of course "winning" is analogous to making a solid. And unlike human players who can get better with time, molecules are indelibly subject to their circumstances and do not benefit whatsoever from experience. Also, that apparatus with the knobs to switch between evacuation and hydrogen infusion.... did you make that yourself? After seeing so many of your videos, it seems like the kind of thing you could and would make yourself.

[@blackbeagle7315]

thank you for the very clear explanation, it was very thorough and beautifully expounded

[@ibrahim_mohamed3604]

Big thx to you Mr you helped me studying lipids in biology .👌

[@wishkah256]

thank you very much for sharing this!

[@hg2.]

Fantastic! Thank you so much!

[@DogBoots77]

Great video. I really learned something. Thanks!

[@imenabbasi8772]

interesting video, I was looking for how to turn oils into waxes for candle making, obviously, I am not a chemist, but this process seems interesting and promising, thank you for sharing

[@azyfloof]

Ben, I've decided, you absolutely *must* get a labcoat with your Applied Science logo embroidered on it :D As a matter of urgency!

[@AppliedScience]

Yes, the thought has occurred to me ;) I've already made a T-shirt design, and will put it on teespring very soon.

[@rihardsrozans6920]

Knowing that this is a one year old comment and you get many more, I doubt you will read this, but badges would be pretty cool too. You could put them on any type of clothing.

[@ulysse8182]

Thank you for this video !

[@andreasheij]

Very cool to know about the Omega 3 thing :D

[@Tangobaldy]

Awesome!

[@TheCroniky]

thank you so much for this amazing video!

[@samsimpson4448]

Thank you!

[@dayleeuy]

Thank you for sharing this very informative video.

[@boy3m]

This is sooo interesting. Thanks for sharing.

[@kanavaan8609]

fantastic video!

[@user-ny3fz7lh2v]

Thanks a lot for the video!!

[@MSgreen4]

Very informative. Great video.

[@millirae9910]

Super interesting and helpful thank you!!

Great vid! I learned a lot.

[@user-ts4rt2jh6w]

Such in informative video, congrats!

[@edwinrichardson5447]

Very informative video thanks!

[@Han-jv5lj]

thank you for this video helps me understanding how is margarine made by hydrogenation

[@AhmedMohammed-bg8gi]

thank you sir for this amazing explanation 🙏🏻🙏🏻

[@jossfitzsimons]

Superb explaination. Thank you.

[@unperrier5998]

Thanks for the video, blue thumb is in order :) That said, it's better you focus on physics and leave medecine to MD :) For a start, unlike what he said in the video, saturated and unsaturated fat don't end up in arteries. They're processed in our GI tract and eventually metabolized in the liver. At the end of the day triglycerides and cholesterol carried by lipoproteins (like chylomicron which turn into HDL and then become IDL and finally LDL) are the only two fats carried by the blood. Triglycerides are small and float easily. Imagine if any fat we ingest ended-up in the blood, remember the blood is an aqueous medium/environment... you'd end-up with phases like in a vinaigrette! Actually unsaturated fats (oils, even olive oil!) are worse for health than saturated fats because of that double bond (polyunsaturated oils even have several of them!) which is prone to attract oxygen molecules which renders the fat "rancid" (oxygenated) and which now acts as a free radical that will cause all sorts of troubles, thin particular it causes inflammation in organs like the liver. This oxygenation occurs within hours. How long do you usually keep your oil in the cupboard? ;) That said any type of fat is bad when consumed with glucose because of glycation: that's the only case when naturally occuring saturated fat (not hydrogenated) is bad, unfortunately every study assumes the American Diet which is high in carbs.... hence they conclude that saturated fat is bad, instead of the more logical conclusion that carbs are bad. He mentionned cavemen and our propension towards saturated fats: well, cavemen didn't have a lot of sugar and processed food laying around like we do since the 1950s. Instead they had meat and fats and a few vegetables and not a lot of carbs (fructose is directly sent to the liver to be metabolized and stored as fat), that's why saturated naturally fats occuring with meat were not harmful to them and they develop a keen sense for saturated fats that we inherited from them. (disclaimer: I'm not an MD but I like the topic)

[@herbslab]

wow, great stuff. thanks!

[@alonmln]

Good video, I've learned a lot!

[@iffy1981]

Thanks Ben, a very thought-out educational video, margarine is a killer.

[@EqualsThreeable]

Very eye opening and explained well. Thanks for informing me.

[@crgarciamg]

I would really like to see you try it and tell us what it tastes like!

[@carolynunwin5075]

Very interesting - thank you! I failed chemistry at school but this was beautifully understandable. Thank you!

[@N3gr0bitch]

you didn't fail, you won.

[@bovko1]

This video should be shown in schools!

[@fern69666]

just shown in my nutrition class

[@unperrier5998]

@@fern69666 I hope you corrected the bit about saturated fat not being healthy, because they actually are (except the man made hydrogenated ones of course)

[@chempharmapat]

Good job man!

[@erickpas]

Super helpful, thanks

[@IMQ567]

Hi, this is a great video...excellent 👍

[@andiarrohnds5163]

Great video!

[@DanFrederiksen]

Nicely enlightening. Highlighting the incompetence and greedy indifference in chemistry in our society. 'We' have much too little respect for how sophisticated and delicate our biological machinery is.

[@skunkjobb]

One could also note that trans fatty acids are not only produced in industrial hydrogenation of fat (oil) but is also present naturally in meat (espacially from ruminants) and diary products. Pure milk based butter contains about 2-4 % trans fats.

[@pelegsap]

Quick note: at 5:40 you drop a stir-bar into the flask, directly on the magnetic stirrer. This should be avoided, since it can shatter the glass (even relatively thick borosilicate glass...). What we used to do in my O-Chem laboratories back in undergrad was to slide the bar in while the flask is in an angle, and never above a magnetic stirrer. Aside from that, though - neat video!

[@DeanBiddler]

+Peleg Bar Sapir Agreed! That clink the stirbar made when dropped made my assole pucker.

[@FueledByKass]

The way to perform this experiment was much simpler than what we did today in my Organic Lab. Instead of just adding hexene, we added cyclohexene and boiled. Barely people got good product so the lab itself wasn't very efficient.

[@nova707ha]

thank you for this video

[@gordongiobanni7543]

This was very cool.

[@shonk3623]

you are underrated sir

[@TheWoodWorkingPilot]

(Another) great video. Thank you. That really organized my memories from chemistry class about the fatty acids. What parameters effect wether the unsaturated fat molecule will have a Trans or Cis structure?

[@jacker372]

In high school I was talking with my chem teacher about a similar process on oil spills. My idea was to use hydrolysis of salt water to change the structure of the crude oil to make it easier to clean. I've always lacked the means due to cost,time, and lack of equipment to test my theory. If you could i'd be highly interested if you could test the same process but with used motor oil rather then olive oil and using salt water as your solvent.

[@SG-ds8pr]

Electrolysis wouldn't change much of crude oil if any at all. It's mostly comprised of cyclic alkanes, aromatics and C1-C60 straight chain alkanes. The best thing to use would be a hydrophobic nonpolar absorbing agent.

[@geetaoh]

is there a way to chemically alter animal fat.. Like tullow / lard / fish into LIQUID oils at room temperature?

[@nr7000000001]

You could also make your own phase changing material with this method, interesting

[@ErikGomez]

You need your own tv show.

[@etcdiy4214]

Thanks Brother

[@salamshurfi1287]

That was really interesting thnx 👍

[@paymentarsip6302]

dec2018. Mr.Ben, thanks for the video. It was great help and great video. keep posting broooo

[@sumayyagull7780]

very well explained

[@rfengr00]

Thanks for the great video. I assume the palladium catalyst and hexane would not be needed if the temperature and pressure were increased? Any idea how Olean was made; that magical fat that could not be absorbed, resulting in "drip"?

[@sarasifg]

Hey Ben, what are you educated in? You are obviously a learned man given your skills and knowledge