Use of triacylglycerol profiles established by high performance liquid chromatography with ultraviolet–visible detection to predict the botanical origin of vegetable oils

A method for the determination of triacylglycerols (TAGs) in vegetable oils from different botanical origins by HPLC with UV–vis detection has been developed. Using a core-shell particle packed column (C18, 2.6 micron), TAG separation was optimized in terms of mobile phase composition and column temperature. Using isocratic elution with acetonitrile/n-pentanol at 10 °C, excellent efficiency with good resolution between most of the TAG peak pairs, within a total analysis time of 15 min, was achieved. Using mass spectrometry detection, a total of 15 peaks, which were common to oils of six different botanical origins (corn, extra virgin olive, grapeseed, hazelnut, peanut and soybean) were iden…