Rapid quantitative determination of the unsaturated fat content of commercial cooking oils using Raman spectroscopy

Abstract

Raman spectroscopy was used to examine three commercial cooking oils to assess its accuracy in determining the total unsaturated fat content of the oils. Two sets of Raman peaks were considered for calculating unsaturated fat content: the peaks at wavenumbers 1264 cm^-1 and 1303 cm^-1 (Set 1), and the peaks at 1656 cm^-1 and 1442 cm^-1 (Set 2). The peaks at 1264 cm^-1 and 1656 cm^-1 are associated with the total unsaturated fatty acid content, while the peaks at 1303 cm^-1 and 1442 cm^-1 are associated with the total fatty acid content. Results show that the ratio of the band areas of the peaks at wavenumbers 1656 cm^-1 and 1442 cm^-1 closely matches the results obtained from gas chromatography with 4-7% error.