Adulteration of Mineral oil in Eatable and Natural hair oils - Check at Home, Health effect of Mineral oil

About Mineral Oils: 

A mineral oil is any of various colorless, odorless, light mixtures of higher alkanes from a non-vegetable (mineral) source, particularly a distillate of petroleum,- like White oil,  kerosene oil, Paraffin oil and other petroleum product.

Health effect of Mineral oil as adulterant: Carcinogenic,

Method – 1:

Principle: The presence of Mineral oil is indicated by the development of turbidity when hot water is added to a freshly made alcoholic solution of the soap formed by the oil.

·         Take 2 ml of oil sample and add an equal quality of N/2 Alcoholic Potash.

·         Heat in boiling water bath (dip in boiling water) for about 15 minutes and add 10 ml of water. Any turbidity shows the presence of Mineral oil more than 1 % w/w.

Method – 2: Holde’s Test

·         Take 25 ml of the alcoholic KOH solution in conical flask and add 1 ml of the sample of oil to be tested.

·         Boil on a water bath using an air or water cooled condenser till the solution becomes clear and no oily drops are found on the sides of the flask.

·         Take out the flask from the water bath, transfer the contents to a wide mouthed warm test tube and carefully add 25 ml of boiling distilled water along the sides of the test tube.

·         Keep on shaking the tube lightly from side to side during the addition.

·         The turbidity indicates presence of Mineral oil, the depth of turbidity depends on the percentage of mineral oil present.

Note: This method is not applicable on high content un-saponifiable value and below 1% content of Mineral oil.

Reference: A.O.A.C 17^th edition 2000, official method 945.102