Detection of Lard Adulteration in Olive Oil by Using Silica Optical Fiber

Abstract

Olive oils fraud currently becomes a major issue in food manufacturing. The current techniques such as Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) cannot distinct the lard in plant-based fats. In this paper, silica optical fiber has been investigated experimentally to detect lard in olive oil with a concentration of 0–5% v/v. The silica optical fiber was connected to a laser source of 1550 nm and an InGaAs photodetector. The silica optical fiber with different fiber structures (single-mode fiber (SMF), multimode fiber (MMF), single-mode-multimode-single-mode fiber (SMS)) was utilized to evaluate the sensitivity of the sensor. The result showed that the SMS fiber structure is potential for the detection of lard adulteration in olive oils with a sensitivity of 1.1107 dBm/% ($v$/$v$). The proposed configuration of the SMS fiber structure offered a simple configuration for the rapid detection of lard adulteration in edible oils.