Vibrational spectroscopic approaches for the quality evaluation and authentication of virgin olive oil

ABSTRACT

Vibrational spectroscopy as an important branch of molecular spectroscopy has been extensively employed for the analysis of olive oil. To date, plenty of research articles have been published with regards to the analysis of olive oil, which is really a complex matrix, demonstrating the great potential of vibrational spectroscopic approaches in these studies. In this critical review, we cover latest progresses and applications of the three vibrational spectroscopies (mid-infrared, near-infrared, and Raman spectroscopy) used for the analysis of olive oil. In the first part of this review, we focus on the basic theoretical aspects related to vibrational spectroscopic techniques and chemometrics, while in the second part, we discuss their recent applications in qualitative evaluation and authentication of virgin olive oil.

KEYWORDS:

• Authentication
• chemometrics
• mid-infrared
• near infrared
• olive oil
• quality evaluation
• Raman
• vibrational spectroscopic approaches

Acknowledgements

We thank Mr. Aaron Yerke from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University for his excellent assistance in the preparation of the manuscript.