Gas-chromatographic fatty-acid fingerprints and partial least squares modeling as a basis for the simultaneous determination of edible oil mixtures

Partial least squares modeling and gas-chromatographic fatty-acid fingerprints are reported as a method for the simultaneous determination of cottonseed, olive, soybean and sunflower edible oil mixtures. In this work, two sets of three- and four-component combinations of oils were prepared, hydrolyzed and the obtained free fatty acids analyzed by gas chromatography (GC) without any further derivatization. The normalized percentages of the myristic (14:0), palmitic (16:0), palmitoleic (16:1), stearic (18:0), oleic (18:1), linoleic (18:2) and linolenic (18:3) acids were chromatographically measured in samples and used for constructing calibration matrix. The cross-validation method was used to select the number of factors and the proposed methods were validated by using two sets of synthetic oil mixture samples. The relative standard error for each oil in mixture samples was less than 10%. This approach allows determining possible adulteration in each of the four edible oils.