Identification and differentiation between olive oil from different Al Jouf olive field areas by optical spectroscopic techniques

Identification and determination of the authenticity of the produced oliveoil by potential spectroscopic techniques have become of nutritional importance to human diet. The study of olive oil is significantly important in trade and business due to the commercial fraud that occurs in the associated business. Al Jouf city, which lies in the northern part of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, is famous for its production of the finest quality of olive oil in the kingdom. There is a need to develop feasible in situ identification techniques for the recognition of and discrimination between different olive oil products. One main laser spectroscopic technique known for its superiority over other conventional techniques as an elemental analytical tool is laser induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS). Inductive couple plasma mass spectrometry is also a well-known conventional technique with very high sensitivity to most of the elements to the range of parts per billion. However, it requires extensive sample preparation and consumes a lot of time. It has been used as a reference technique to validate the results of the LIBS technique. Moreover, phenolic compounds, which are essential in various types of functional food and folk medicine, were investigated using conventional vibrational analytical tools such as Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy.