Lipid-derived aldehyde degradation under thermal conditions

Nucleophilic degradation produced by reactive carbonyls plays a major role in food quality and safety. Nevertheless, these reactions are complex because reactive carbonyls are usually involved in various competitive reactions. This study describes the thermal degradation of 2-alkenals (2-pentenal and 2-octenal) and 2,4-alkadienals (2,4-heptadienal and 2,4-decadienal) in an attempt to both clarify the stability of aldehydes and determine new compounds that might also play a role in nucleophile/aldehyde reactions. The obtained results showed that alkenals and alkadienals decomposed rapidly in the presence of buffer and air to produce formaldehyde, acetaldehyde, and the aldehydes corresponding to the breakage of the carboncarbon double bonds: propanal, hexanal, 2-pentenal, 2-octenal, glyoxal, and fumaraldehyde. The activation energy of double bond breakage was relatively low (∼25 kJ/mol) and the yield of alkanals (10–18%) was higher than that of 2-alkenals (∼1%). All these results indicate that these reactions should be considered in order to fully understand the range of nucleophile/aldehyde adducts produced.