Affiliations 

  • 1 Environmental Technology Division, School of Industrial Technology, Universiti Sains Malaysia, 11800 USM, Penang, Malaysia; Analytical Biochemistry Research Centre, Universiti Sains Malaysia, 11800 USM, Penang, Malaysia. Electronic address: syahidah.muhammad@usm.my
  • 2 Food Technology Division, School of Industrial Technology, Universiti Sains Malaysia, 11800 USM, Penang, Malaysia
  • 3 Environmental Technology Division, School of Industrial Technology, Universiti Sains Malaysia, 11800 USM, Penang, Malaysia
  • 4 Analytical Biochemistry Research Centre, Universiti Sains Malaysia, 11800 USM, Penang, Malaysia
  • 5 Agrobiology Division, School of Biological Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia, 11800 USM, Penang, Malaysia
  • 6 Discipline of Clinical Pharmacy, School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia, 11800 USM, Penang, Malaysia
Sci Justice, 2018 Jan;58(1):59-66.
PMID: 29332695 DOI: 10.1016/j.scijus.2017.05.008

Abstract

A total of 33 crude palm oil samples were randomly collected from different regions in Malaysia. Stable carbon isotopic composition (δ13C) was determined using Flash 2000 elemental analyzer while hydrogen and oxygen isotopic compositions (δ2H and δ18O) were analyzed by Thermo Finnigan TC/EA, wherein both instruments were coupled to an isotope ratio mass spectrometer. The bulk δ2H, δ18O and δ13C of the samples were analyzed by Hierarchical Cluster Analysis (HCA), Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and Orthogonal Partial Least Square-Discriminant Analysis (OPLS-DA). Unsupervised HCA and PCA methods have demonstrated that crude palm oil samples were grouped into clusters according to respective state. A predictive model was constructed by supervised OPLS-DA with good predictive power of 52.60%. Robustness of the predictive model was validated with overall accuracy of 71.43%. Blind test samples were correctly assigned to their respective cluster except for samples from southern region. δ18O was proposed as the promising discriminatory marker for discerning crude palm oil samples obtained from different regions. Stable isotopes profile was proven to be useful for origin traceability of crude palm oil samples at a narrower geographical area, i.e. based on regions in Malaysia. Predictive power and accuracy of the predictive model was expected to improve with the increase in sample size. Conclusively, the results in this study has fulfilled the main objective of this work where the simple approach of combining stable isotope analysis with chemometrics can be used to discriminate crude palm oil samples obtained from different regions in Malaysia. Overall, this study shows the feasibility of this approach to be used as a traceability assessment of crude palm oils.

* Title and MeSH Headings from MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.