Evaluation of three spectroscopic techniques in determination of adulteration of cold pressed pomegranate seed oils

Abstract

It was aimed to compare three spectroscopic methods in determination of adulteration of cold pressed pomegranate seed oils (PSOs) with sunflower oil in this research. UV–visible, mid-infrared and fluorescence spectra of pure and adulterated pomegranate oils (1–50%, v/v) were collected and data were analyzed with multivariate statistical analysis techniques. According to orthogonal partial least square discriminant analysis, best differentiation between pure and mixed samples was obtained with mid-infrared spectroscopy having 100% success rate. Fluorescence and UV–visible spectroscopy also provided good discrimination between samples with 96 and 88% successful classification rates, respectively. As a result of partial least square regression analysis, detection limits for mid-infrared, UV–visible and fluorescence spectroscopies are determined as >1, 5 and 10% in order. Since all spectroscopic methods provided detection of mixtures of cold pressed PSOs with sunflower oil at low concentrations they could serve as easy to use and rapid techniques in control laboratories.