Olive oil adulteration with sunflower and corn oil using molecular fluorescence spectroscopy

Abstract

Adulteration of olive oil with cheaper substitutes such as sunflower and corn oil is a major concern for the public. Rapid analysis methods are required for a quick and easy screening of possible adulteration attempts. Fluorescence spectroscopy coupled with a genetic algorithm-based multivariate calibration method allows the determination of olive oil adulteration with sunflower and corn oil. Because the standard error of prediction values are all below 1.30% (w/w) for the ternary set, fluorescence spectroscopy can be used as a fast screening method for possible olive oil adulteration with cheaper vegetable oils. In addition, the genetic algorithm used in the genetic inverse least squares (GILS) method is able to select and extract the most relevant information to build successful calibration models that have high predictive ability for the independent test samples.