Unmasking of olive oil adulteration via a multi-sensor platform

Abstract

Methods for the chemical and sensorial evaluation of olive oil are frequently changed and tuned to oppose the increasingly sophisticated frauds. Although a plethora of promising alternatives has been developed, chromatographic techniques remain the more reliable yet, even at the expense of their related execution time and costs. In perspective of a continuous increment in the number of the analyses as a result of the global market, more rapid and effective methods to guarantee the safety of the olive oil trade are required. In this study, a novel artificial sensorial system, based on gas and liquid analysis, has been employed to deal with olive oil genuineness and authenticity issues. Despite these sensors having been widely used in the field of food science, the innovative electronic interface of the device is able to provide a higher reproducibility and sensitivity of the analysis. The multi-parametric platform demonstrated the capability to evaluate the organoleptic properties of extra-virgin olive oils as well as to highlight the presence of adulterants at blending concentrations usually not detectable through other methods.