Hue Parameter Fluorescence Identification of Edible Oils with a Smartphone

Food fraud can be highly lucrative, and high accuracy authentication of various foodstuffs is becoming essential. Olive oil is one of the most investigated food matrices, due to its high price and low production globally, with recent food fraud examples showing little or no high quality olive oil in the tested oils. Here a simple method using a 405 nm LED flashlight and a smartphone is developed for edible oil authentication. Identification is fingerprinted by intrinsic fluorescent compounds in the oils, such as chlorophylls and polyphenols. This study uses the hue parameter of HSV-colorspace to authenticate 24 different edible oils of 9 different types and 15 different brands. For extra virgin olive oil, all nine samples are well separated from the other oil samples. The rest of the samples were also well type-distinguished by the hue parameter, which is complemented by hue histogram analysis. This opens up opportunities for low-cost and high-throughput smartphone field-testing of edible oils on all levels of the production and supply chain.