Antioxidant activities of tocopherols

摘要

Tocopherols are known to show high antioxidant activities. Their action mechanism, however, has not yet been discussed suffi- ciently. In this study tocopherols were investigated kinetically, together with p-methoxyphenol. The rate equation shows that a tocopherol can trap more mol of radicals than two, namely 2.3- 2.9 mol, per mol of tocopherol, and can trap alkyl radicals as well as peroxy radicals. The rate equation for p-methoxyphenol, on the other hand, suggested that it behaves similarly to a tocopherol in antioxidant action. The action mechanism of a tocopherol, thus, is estimated from detailed study on the antioxidant action of the smaller and simpler p-methoxyphenol, namely study on the kinetic evaluation and qualitative and quantitative analyses of products obtained after the antioxidant action of p-methoxyphenol.