1. Application of Microwave Spectroscopy Analysis on Determining the Quality of Oils
S. B. Osman, O. Korostynska, A. Mason, J. D. Cullen and A. I. Al-Shamma’a
New Materials and Developments in Sensor Technologies
The Royal Society of Chemistry, Burlington House, Piccadilly, London

3. Objectives Classification of edible oils To examine authenticity
To detect possible adulteration
Number of institutions (as at August 2011) :  Country Universities* Higher Education Institutions**  England   Scotland 14 19  Wales 10 11  Northern Ireland 2 4  United Kingdom  

4. Gas Chromatography

5. High-Performance Liquid Chromatography [HPLC] System

6. Infrared Spectroscopy
Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy

7. Nuclear Magnetic Resonance
NMR
Nuclear Magnetic Resonance

8. Challenges… Too expensive for widespread industrial use
Require samples to be analysed in dedicated laboratories
Incurring a significant time penalty.

9. Microwave Spectroscopy
VNA
SENSOR
DISPLAY

10. Sensor

11. Samples Sample Description 1 Sunflower Oil (100%) 2
Grape seed Oil (100%) 3
Groundnut Oil (100%) 4
Olive Oil (mixed) 5
Olive Oil (medium flavour) 6
Olive Oil (fruity flavour) 7
Olive Oil (Extra Virgin)

12. Experimental Setup

13. Results

14. Conclusion
This work evaluated microwave spectroscopy as a technique for distinguishing various oil types, with the long-term aim of authenticity determination.
Various supermarket oil samples were analysed and the results show that each produces a unique signal spectra.
This paves way for the application of this method in the detection of adulteration in edible oils.
Our analysis included differing additives and combinations of oils to determine the capability of the method in distinguishing common fraud techniques.
The results prove that any dilution of any of the sample could alter the characteristics of the spectrum.

15. Future Work
In addition, associated hardware and software will be developed to make the entire system portable and affordable for industry use.
The Field Conditioned Virtual Network Analyser (FCVNA) will combine these analysis with other capabilities to achieve real-time quality control of vegetable oils.

16. Thanks for listening!