Simple and fast determination of phenolic compounds from different varieties of olive oil by nonaqueous capillary electrophoresis with UV-visible and fluorescence detection.

In this article, we proposed very simple procedures to analyze important phenolic compounds in olive oil samples from different olive varieties. A nonaqueous CE method has been employed. The main phenolic alcohols in virgin olive oil (tyrosol and hydroxytyrosol) and some among the most abundant secoiridoid aglycone derivatives (dialdehydic form of decarboxymethyl elenoic acid linked to hydroxytyrosol, an isomer of oleuropein aglycone and the dialdehydic form of decarboxymethyl elenoic acid linked to tyrosol) were determined by a direct injection into the capillary of the olive oil dissolved in 1-propanol 1:1 v/v. For the determination of compounds present at lower concentrations, a very simple liquid-liquid extraction method with ethanol has been proposed. The extraction was performed using a relationship 5:1 w/v olive oil/ethanol to achieve the necessary preconcentration of the analytes and the ethanolic extracts were directly injected into the capillary to obtain a very important time reduction. Good recoveries were obtained with both the procedures, using an internal standard. Finally, these procedures were applied to the analysis of these compounds in extra virgin olive oil samples from different varieties of olive.