Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Science, Izmir Institute of Technology, Gülbahce 35430 URLA / IZMIR, Turkey

(Received: February 27, 2006; Accepted: September 22, 2006)

ABSTRACT

   Determination of authenticity of extra virgin olive oils has become very important in recent years due to the increasing public concerns about possible adulterations with relatively cheap vegetable oils such as sunflower oil.  This study was focused on the application of near infrared (NIR) spectroscopy in conjunction with multivariate calibration to identify the adulteration of olive oils.  NIR transmittance measurements were made on pure olive oil and olive oil adulterated with varying concentrations (4-96%, v/v) of sunflower and corn oil in two sets of 26 binary and ternary mixtures.  Multivariate calibration models were generated using genetic inverse least squares (GILS) method and used to predict the concentration of adulterants along with the concentration of olive oil in the samples.  Over all, standard error of predictions ranged between 2.49 and 2.88% (v/v) for the binary mixtures of olive and sunflower oil and between 1.42 and 6.38% (v/v) for the ternary mixtures of olive, sunflower and corn oil.