Determination of Endogenous Aliphatic Hydrocarbons of Virgin Olive Oils of Four Autochthonous Cultivars from Krk Island (Croatia)
Olivera Koprivnjak1, Giuseppe Procida2, Luciano Favretto2
1Institute for Agriculture and Tourism - Poreč University of Rijeka C. Hugues 8, 52440 Poreč, Croatia
2 Dipartimento di Economia e Merceologia delle Risorse Naturali e della Produzione, University of Trieste, via A. Valerio 6, 34127 Trieste, Italy
Article history:
Received March 27, 1997
Accepted June 13, 1997
Key words:
olive oil, aliphatic hydrocarbons, analytical methods
Summary:
Analytical processes that xvould enable simple and reliable control of food products protected by mark of origin have been increasingly studied. One of the series of parameters that can give the information about the origin of virgin olive oil is the composition of endogenous hydrocarbon fraction, which has been, according to the papers of some Spanish investigators, specific with respect to the cultivar of olive. In this paper the fraction of endogenous hydrocarbon of four autochthonous cultivars from Krk Island: Debela, Naška, Rosulja and Slatka, was determined. Cultivar Naška is noticeably different in regard of total content of alkanes (2.5 times higher than the other three cultivars), and it shows a specific profile of composition in which the components with 25, 23 and 24 carbon atoms in chain dominate. By testing the applied method a high recovery level of studied components (over 90%) and a good repeatability (the average of coefficient of variation for 15 components about 2.20%) were found.
