Olive Oil Adulteration Sensing by Ftir and Raman Spectroscopy

The adulteration of extra virgin olive oil with cheaper oils is a major problem in the olive oil market. In the present work, experimental determinations of low cost vegetable oils content in extra virgin olive oils (EVOO) were performed by Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectrometry and Raman spectrometry. To this purpose, a set of pure oils and mixtures of extra-virgin oils and different vegetable oils was arranged and used as experimental material in the reported study. Moreover the EVOO ageing process was studied by FTIR spectrometry. The reference spectra were collected in the ENEA Research Laboratories as well as CNR Laboratories. A data treatment of the spectral results was performed to allow an easy and fast comparison of the samples. The classification of the different mixtures was based on the intensity ratio between selected bands.