From the above, an appropriate reaction time for hydrolysisl hydrogenation was found to be 60 min at the given conditions. Based on the HPLC and GPC analyses, the yield of the products from rapeseed oil was determined as shown in Table 1. Triglycerides in rapeseed oil were converted into saturated fatty acids and their yield was summed up to be 96.1 4.5 89.7 1.9) mol%. In addi- tion, 2.3 mol% of glycerides still remained as intermediate com pounds. Finally, the total yield of fatty acids and glycerides was 98.4 moix and any other products were not observed in the HPLE chart. In addition, no gaseous products were produced and saturated fatty acids are stable under the given condition. Thus, no product decomposition would be occurred. Therefore, the rest of 1.6 molx would probably be lost through the purification steps. By excluding the lost portion, the molar ratio upon the obtained products basis was shown in parenthesis in Table 1. As a result, the molar ratio of the obtained saturated fatty acids 16:0 18:0. 20:0 4.6 91.2:1.9) is close to the fatty acid composi tion of rapeseed oil (C 16:0 C :C C C 18:2 C 18:3 16:1 18:0 18:1 C20.0 20:1 4.5:94.0 1.5). It means that the selective reaction to be saturated fatty acids has occurred during the hydrolysis/hydro- genation step