Feasibility of Using a Cheap Colour Sensor to Detect Blends of Vegetable Oils in Avocado Oil

Abstract

This proof-of-concept study explored the use of an RGB colour sensor to identify different blends of vegetable oils in avocado oil. The main aim of this work was to distinguish avocado oil from its blends with canola, sunflower, corn, olive, and soybean oils. The study involved RGB measurements conducted using two different light sources: UV (395 nm) and white light. Classification methods, such as Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA) and Least Squares Support Vector Machine (LS-SVM), were employed for detecting the blends. The LS-SVM model exhibited superior classification performance under white light, with an accuracy exceeding 90%, thus demonstrating a robust prediction capability without evidence of random adjustments. A quantitative approach was followed as well, employing Multiple Linear Regression (MLR) and LS-SVM, for the quantification of each vegetable oil in the blends. The LS-SVM model consistently achieved good performance (R2 > 0.9) in all examined cases, both for internal and external validation. Additionally, under white light, LS-SVM models yielded root mean square errors (RMSE) between 1.17–3.07%, indicating a high accuracy in blend prediction. The method proved to be rapid and cost-effective, without the necessity of any sample pretreatment. These findings highlight the feasibility of a cost-effective colour sensor in identifying avocado oil blended with other oils, such as canola, sunflower, corn, olive, and soybean oils, suggesting its potential as a low-cost and efficient alternative for on-site oil analysis.