Olive Oil and Electronic Nose

Extra virgin olive oil (EVOO) is a typical product of the Mediterranean diet that plays a major role for its health benefits and excellent organoleptic properties linked to the peculiar chemical composition. One of the most significant improvements in the olive oil industry in recent years is the development of intelligent sensing systems, so-called "electronic noses," that allow rapid, direct, and highly sensitive online monitoring of food aromatic profiles. In this chapter we show the capability of two commercial electronic noses based on two different working principles-metal oxide and field effect sensors array (MOS/MOSFET) and proton transfer mass spectrometry (PTR-MS)-to characterize EVOO. The capability of these two systems to analyze EVOO was verified with four different case studies that investigated: (1) the oxidation stage of EVOO during storage, discrimination of EVOO samples based on (2) MOS/MOSFET (3) PTR-MS electronic nose, and (4) process monitoring by PTR-MS