Study on Antioxidative Effect of Lycopene to the Photosensitized Oxidation of Soybean Oil

A research was designed to study the effect on inhibiting the photosensitized oxidation of natural (lycopene) and synthetic (tertiary butylhydroquinon, TBHQ) antioxidant in soybean oil. In the presence of light, mean value of all samples revealed that a significant increase in peroxide value, free acid value and thiobarbituric acid (TBA) assay. The addition of lycopene and TBHQ reduced the peroxide value of control sample from 12.810 to 7.378 and 9.882 meq/kg, respectively. And TBA was found to be 0.163 in control sample, while the values of lycopene and TBHQ treatments were 0.080 and 0.134. Meanwhile, the oil samples were treated with different does of lycopene under light, the rate of oxidation increased considerably with a corresponding decrease in the content of lycopene. The data showed that oils containing 300 ppm lycopene had the lowest levels of free fatty acid value.The results indicated that lycopene in soybean oil exposed to light were found to be effective in inhibiting lipid oxidation.