High performance liquid chromatography method with ultra-violet detection (HPLC-UV) fingerprinting was applied for the analysis and characterization of olive oils, and was performed using a Zorbax Eclipse XDB-C8 reversed-phase column under gradient elution, employing 0.1% formic acid aqueous solution and methanol as mobile phase. More than 130 edible oils, including monovarietal extra-virgin olive oils (EVOOs) and other vegetable oils, were analyzed. Principal component analysis results showed a noticeable discrimination between olive oils and other vegetable oils using raw HPLC-UV chromatographic profiles as data descriptors. However, selected HPLC-UV chromatographic time-window segments were necessary to achieve discrimination among monovarietal EVOOs. Partial least square (PLS) regression was employed to tackle olive oil authentication of Arbequina EVOO adulterated with Picual EVOO, a refined olive oil, and sunflower oil. Highly satisfactory results were obtained after PLS analysis, with overall errors in the quantitation of adulteration in the Arbequina EVOO (minimum 2.5% adulterant) below 2.9%.
Keywords: UV detection; food authentication; fraud quantitation; high performance liquid chromatography; multivariate calibration; olive oils.