Detection of adulteration of extra-virgin olive oil by chemometric analysis of mid-infrared spectral data

This study focuses on the detection and quantification of extra-virgin olive oil adulteration with different edible oils using mid-infrared (IR) spectroscopy with chemometrics. Mid-IR spectra were manipulated with wavelet compression previous to principal component analysis (PCA). Detection limit of adulteration was determined as 5% for corn–sunflower binary mixture, cottonseed and rapeseed oils. For quantification of adulteration, mid-IR spectral data were manipulated with orthogonal signal correction (OSC) and wavelet compression before partial least square (PLS) analysis. The results revealed that models predict the adulterants, corn–sunflower binary mixture, cottonseed and rapeseed oils, in olive oil with error limits of 1.04, 1.4 and 1.32, respectively. Furthermore, the data were analysed with a general PCA model and PLS discriminant analysis (PLS-DA) to observe the efficiency of the model to detect adulteration regardless of the type of adulterant oil. In this case, detection limit for adulteration is determined as 10%.