Determination of Olive Oil Acidity Using an Enzymatic Method

Abstract

In this work, a new method for determination of olive oil acidity is proposed. The method is based on the measurement of polyunsaturated free fatty acids reacting with lipoxygenase. Hydroperoxy-fatty acids enzymatically formed were easily determined by UV spectrophotometry at 234 nm. The proposed method is successfully applied to the determination of acidity in olive oil samples and good agreement between the proposed enzymatic method and the classical official one was obtained. This method is accurate, simple, sensitive, inexpensive, and reliable for olive oil acidity determination with a high sample throughput.

Keywords:

• Acidity
• Analytical enzyme system
• Lipoxygenase
• Olive oil
• Spectrophotometry