Advantages of Adulterant Screen for Detection of Olive Oil Adulteration by Attenuated Total Reflectance (ATR) FT-IR

Adulteration of Extra Virgin Olive Oil with lower quality olive oils, or other lower cost edible oils, is frequently reported in the media. The most common adulterants include: hazelnut oil, sunflower oil, soybean oil, corn oil, rapeseed oil, and olive pomace oil. Fraudulent activities, such as dilution or even substitution with other lower cost oils containing additional chemicals that enable the oil to appear to be of higher quality oil and pass routine screening tests are on the rise. This application note describes a fast, simple, low-cost solution to screen olive oils for adulteration using the PerkinElmer Spectrum Two, equipped with a UATR sampling accessory.