Applications

Commercial analytical labs and testing labs are performing analytical chemistry as a service for customers. Corporate labs utilize it for quality control within the food, chemical, cosmetics and pharma industries.

Our lipids are used for a broad range of food and nutritional science related activities. This includes basic research in nutritional science, dietary research, food oil chemistry, food safety, etc.

Lipids can be used as experimental taste or texture modifying ingredients for development of new products in the food industry. Or as a passive, or even an active, ingredient for studies of medical nutrition and clinical nutrition products. Lipid reference standards and reagents are essential for process development work not least in the in the food oils industry, to measure progress of processes as well as to test for contaminants.

Lipid reference standards are in regular use for characterization of lipid content as a part of the quality control in many branches of the food industry, including the dairy sector and the manufacture of infant formula. In this “food and nutrition vertical”, lipids can be either the problem or the solution, or both.

Lipids have an equally broad application spectrum within bioscientific research and pharmaceutical manufacture. They are used for basic as well applied research in biochemistry, cell and molecular biology, structural biology, biophysics, physical chemistry, pharmacological research, etc. From a bioscientific perspective, there is a range of reasons to study lipids; as membrane building blocks, as cellular signallers, as hormonal precursors, for their role in biomolecular transport, etc. In the pharmaceutical and biotech industries, lipids are relevant both as targets for drugs and as active pharmaceutical ingredients (API) – lipids can be either the disease or the cure, or both. Historically, lipids have also been used as excipients (passive ingredients) in the formulation of various API’s. With the recent development of mRNA vaccines, new types of lipids and lipid-like compounds have come to be utilized as components of solid lipid nanoparticles.

In the cosmetics and personal care industries, lipids are used both as active and passive ingredients. Of course, lipids in the form of vegetable oils have long, historical applications as skin care products. This use has only grown more sophisticated over time, and modern cosmetic and personal care products may also contain isomerically pure lipid compounds as an active ingredient. Cosmetic chemistry has also proven to be very innovative in its use of lipids as passive ingredients for the formulation of (sometimes very valuable) active ingredients. Interestingly, skin and hair tissues contain unique lipid compounds that are also a target for cosmetic products, making these lipids the objects of biological studies as well.

Finally, lipids are relevant in various branches of the chemical industry. Some lipids are manufactured at large scale for use as raw materials in the food, pharmaceutical or personal care industries. Lipids are processed at an equally large scale in the biofuels industry, not least within the manufacture of biodiesel. Lipids are also important or crucial components of many “chemical products,” including technical oils, lubricants, waxes, etc. Not to forget that lipids, in the form of “grease,” are a major target for household detergents. In all these branches of the chemical industry, lipid reference standards and reagents are in daily use for everything from new product development to quality control.