Calorimetric analysis points out the physical-chemistry of organic olive oils and reveals the geographical origin

The thermal properties of many organic extra Virgin Olive Oils (eVOOs) coming from different countries of the world were investigated by Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC). This technique, through a series of heating and cooling cycles, provides a specific curve, i.e., a thermogram, which represents the fingerprint of each eVOO sample. In fact, variations due to the different cultivars, geographical origin or chemical composition can be highlighted because they produce changes in the corresponding thermogram. In particular, in this work, we show the results of an unsupervised multivariate statistical analysis applied to the DSC thermograms of many organic eVOOs. This analysis allows us to discriminate the geographical origin of the different studied samples in terms of the peculiar features shown by the melting profiles of the triacylglycerol moieties. (C) 2017 Published by Elsevier B.V.