Tag: Vitamin e manufacturing

According to research from the National Institutes of Health, synthetic vitamin E, or dl-alpha tocopherol, is produced through a chemical condensation reaction using raw materials often derived from fossil fuels. This industrial process is highly controlled to create a racemic mixture of all eight possible stereoisomers of alpha-tocopherol.

Tocopherols, a class of fat-soluble compounds with vitamin E activity, are widely distributed in nature and were first discovered as a dietary fertility factor in rats in 1936. Commercially, tocopherols are made using two distinct methods: natural extraction from plant sources or synthetic creation in a lab setting.