Detection of virgin olive oil adulteration using a voltammetric e-tongue

• Detection of olive oil adulteration was carried out using an e-tongue.
• Good correlation between e-tongue and polyphenolic content was obtained.
• PCA, PLS-DA and ANOVA allows classification of adulterated olive oils.
• Voltammetric tongue was an efficient tool of the detection of EVOO adulterations.

The detection of adulteration in extra virgin olive oils is of great interest in food industry. This article presents the first use of a voltammetric e-tongue for the detection of the adulteration of virgin olive oil. Adulterations of an extra virgin olive oil with different percentages of sunflower oil, soybean oil and corn oil were measured using modified carbon paste based sensors. The square wave voltammetric signals were processed using kernel method. Chemometric methods applied allows discrimination and classification of oils in agreement with botanical origins. Excellent correlations between voltammetric signals and polyphenolic content was obtained by PLS regression. PLS-DA and PLS regression demonstrated the feasibility of detecting adulterations of olive oil with percentages lower than 10% of sunflower, soybean and corn oils. These results indicate that e-tongue can be a useful tool for the detection of olive oil adulteration with seed oils.