What is the Difference Between Saturated and Unsaturated Acylglycerol

The key difference between saturated and unsaturated acylglycerol is that saturated acylglycerol occurs in the solid state, whereas unsaturated acylglycerol occurs in the liquid state.

An acylglycerol is an ester of glycerol and fatty acid that occurs naturally as fats and fatty oils. Synonyms for this term are glyceride and triglyceride. There are different types of acylglycerols, such as monoglycerides, diglycerides, and triglycerides. All these acylglycerols fall into two categories: saturated and unsaturated acylglycerols.

CONTENTS

1. Overview and Key Difference
2. What is Saturated Acylglycerol
3. What is Unsaturated Acylglycerol
4. Saturated vs Unsaturated Acylglycerol  in Tabular Form
5. Summary – Saturated vs Unsaturated Acylglycerol

What is Saturated Acylglycerol?

Saturated acylglycerols are acylglycerol compounds having only single bonds between carbon atoms and no double or triple bonds. These compounds have a predominance of saturated fatty acids in their chemical structure. Therefore, saturated acylglycerol compounds are saturated with covalent bonds around carbon atoms, where we can observe the maximum number of hydrogen atoms for a given number of carbon atoms in the chemical structure of the saturated acylglycerol.

Generally, this type of acylglycerols has a high melting point compared to the corresponding unsaturated acylglycerols, which have a similar molecular weight. This makes the acylglycerol solid at room temperature. Some examples include tallow, lard, stearin, etc.

What is Unsaturated Acylglycerol?

Unsaturated acylglycerols are acylglycerol compounds having double or triple bonds between atoms along with single bonds. There can be one or more double or triple bonds in a molecule. These compounds have a predominance of unsaturated fatty acids in their chemical structure. In other words, the unsaturated form is not saturated with sigma covalent bonds around carbon atoms; therefore, they have a minimum number of hydrogen atoms for a given number of carbon atoms in the fatty acid chain structure.

There are two major types of unsaturated acylglycerol; they are monounsaturated acylglycerols and polyunsaturated acylglycerols. The monounsaturated form contains only one double bond per carbon chain, while the polyunsaturated form can have two or more double bonds per carbon chain in the same molecule.

Usually, polyunsaturated forms have important applications in the food industry due to their nutritional aspects, but there can be some non-food applications as well. Non-food applications include the production of drying oils, including linseed, tung, poppy seed, perilla, and walnut oil.

What is the Difference Between Saturated and Unsaturated Acylglycerol?

Saturated and unsaturated acylglycerols differ from each other according to their bonding patterns. The key difference between saturated and unsaturated acylglycerol is that saturated acylglycerol occurs in the solid state, whereas unsaturated acylglycerol occurs in the liquid state. This is because saturated acylglycerols have only single bonds around the carbon atoms, which gives them a high boiling point. On the other hand, unsaturated acylglycerols have one or more double or triple bonds around the carbon atoms, which gives a low boiling point. Some examples of saturated forms include tallow, lard, stearin, etc., while triolein is an example of an unsaturated form.

Below is a summary of the difference between saturated and unsaturated diacylglycerol in tabular form for side-by-side comparison.

Summary – Saturated vs Unsaturated Acylglycerol

Saturated acylglycerols are acylglycerol compounds having only single bonds between atoms and no double or triple bonds. Unsaturated acylglycerols are acylglycerol compounds having double or triple bonds between atoms along with single bonds. The key difference between saturated and unsaturated acylglycerol is that saturated acylglycerol occurs in the solid state, whereas unsaturated acylglycerol occurs in the liquid state. This is because of the nature of chemical bonds in these two forms of chemical compounds.

Reference:

1. “Acylglycerol.” An Overview | ScienceDirect Topics.
2. “Three Types of Triglycerides.” LIVESTRONG.COM, Leaf Group.

Image Courtesy:

1.  “How to Render Beef Tallow” By thedabblist  (CC BY 2.0) via Flickr
2. “Triolein 3D ball” By Jynto (talk) – This image was created with Discovery Studio Visualizer (CC0) via Commons Wikimedia