Iranian Researchers Develop Rapid Method to Identify Fake Olive Oil

They designed a hybrid system using ultrasound and an electronic nose with an effective, non-destructive, accurate, and environmentally friendly method, which determines the quality of olive oil in less than a few minutes. 

In food products such as extra virgin olive oil, many frauds may occur which, in addition to material damage, may cause poisoning and physical harm to the consumer.

Fraud in the supply of olive oil usually involves adding a lower-priced oil to the product, so that there is no change in the indicators.

Therefore, it is not so easy to identify olive oil impurities, and the conventional methods for determining the quality of olive oil are often destructive, time-consuming, and expensive.

The new system, which has been designed for laboratory use, can meet the needs of food inspectors and buyers in a non-destructive manner, in a short time and at a lower cost, to ensure the purity of olive oil.

By combining two efficient methods of ultrasound and electronic nose, the system determines the purity of olive oil with very high accuracy.

The ultrasonic system uses a pair of two-MHz ultrasonic transmitter and receiver probes, which works by determining ultrasonic characteristics such as speed and amplitude and comparing these characteristics in different samples.

The combined data of two ultrasonic and olfactory systems were analyzed with different types of machine learning algorithms such as artificial neural networks.

The simultaneous use of two systems will eliminate the weaknesses and increase the accuracy in identifying the quality of olive oil to more than 95 percent.

The system, which has a patent certificate and a scientific verification certificate from the Iranian Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, can also be used to detect fraud and determine the quality of food products other than olive oil by applying minor changes and calibration.

Results of the research project have been announced at national and international conferences and also published as articles in prestigious magazines such as Food Chemistry: X, Food Science & Nutrition, Food Analytical Methods, and the Journal of Food Science and Technology.

4155/g