Non-thermal plasma as preparative technique to evaluate olive oil adulteration

Abstract

In recent years adulteration of pure extra virgin olive oil (EVOO) with other types of vegetable oils has become an important issue. In this study, non-thermal plasma (NTP) is investigated as an innovative preparative analytical technique enabling classification of adulterated olive oil from an ascertained authentic batch of olive oil in a more sensitive manner. Non-thermal plasma discharges are a source of highly oxidative species such as singlet oxygen, and atomic oxygen. It was assumed that NTP-induced oxidation triggers unique lipid oxidation mechanisms depending on the specific composition of the oil matrix and minor constituents. In this work EVOO samples were adulterated with sunflower oil (1–3%) and submitted to NTP treatment. Results showed that while untreated samples could not be classified from the authentic olive oil reference, NTP treatments of 60min (Ar/O2 0.1%) on the oil batches resulted in the formation of a unique set of secondary volatile lipid oxidation products enabling classification of adulterated oil samples.