Adulterating edible oil with copper chlorophyll derivatives (E141i) has made a substantial impact on the edible oil industry and food safety. This study demonstrates an efficient and reliable screening method to directly identify the color adulteration by the aid of a simple photobleaching pretreatment using a 365 nm ultraviolet-light-emitting diode working at a photon flux density of 480 mmol m-2 s-1 for 24 min. The content of copper chlorophyll [predominantly Cu-pyropheophytin a (Cu-py a)] can be calculated by A600, A650, and A700 with satisfactory spike recovery [97.9-103.6%; six kinds of edible oils spiked with 1 ppm of Cu-py a; n = 3 for each kind of oil; relative standard deviation (RSD) < 5%], linearity ( R2 = 0.9961 when spiking 0.1-10 ppm of Cu-py a into soybean oil standard; n = 3 for each concentration; RSD < 5%), and reproducibility (RSD < 5% for spiking 1 ppm of Cu-py a into soybean oil standard; n = 3 over 3 days). The detection limit (S/N > 5) was 0.05 ppm. The analytical results of 50 commercially available oil samples were verified by the official high-performance liquid chromatography method.
Keywords: adulteration; copper chlorophyll; edible oil; photobleaching; spectrophotometry.