Infrared spectroscopy for quantitative analysis and oil parameters of olive oil and virgin coconut oil: A review

Vegetable oils are major lipid sources with high nutritional and calorific values for human diet. Specifically, virgin coconut oil and extra virgin olive oil are the functional oils widely used in food and pharmaceutical products, either as vehicles or main components. The quality of edible oils is determined by its contents and parameters inherent in vegetable oils. Infrared spectroscopy is an ideal technique for quantitative analysis of vegetable oils as well as for determination of oils parameters as the changes in infrared spectra can be associated with the changes of oils parameters. Infrared spectra in complex samples are difficult to interpret, as a consequence, spectroscopist uses additional tools called with chemometrics to analyse edible oils qualitatively and quantitatively. This article reviews the use of infrared spectroscopy combined with chemometrics (multivariate analysis) for quantitative analysis and determination of oil parameters of virgin coconut oil and extra virgin olive oil. Although infrared spectra for edible oils are similar, they exhibit some differences which enable spectroscopist to differentiate due to the nature property of infrared spectroscopy spectra as fingerprint spectra which can be understood that there are no different edible oils having the same infrared spectroscopy spectra.