Visible Near Infrared Spectroscopy as a Green Technology: An Environmental Impact Comparative Study on Olive Oil Analyses

Abstract

The olive oil industry is a significant productive sector in the European Union and the related production process is characterised by practices and techniques associated with several adverse effects on the environment. In the literature, many works on the environmental impact assessment of the olive oil chain have been carried out but the effects of the analytical analyses procedures were considered to be negligible. Currently, the reduction of solvents and of energy consumption in the laboratory has become a crucial aspect to be investigated. In this scenario, non-destructive optical methods based on visible/near-infrared (vis/NIR) spectroscopy represent a simple, rapid, and easy-to-use method to predict olive and olive oil quality parameters. Therefore, the aim of the work was to evaluate the environmental impact of the use of optical vis/NIR technologies for analytical assessment in comparison to chemical analyses on olive oil. The life cycle assessment method (LCA) was used. The functional unit defined for this study was the analysis and a “from cradle to grave” approach was applied. The vis/NIR technology results were distinctly better, by 36 times on average, than the chemical methods. Attention must be paid to the calibration phase of the vis/NIR instrumentation: In this case, the two methods must coexist for this initial procedure to obtain the required reference data for a reliable chemometric model. In conclusion, the vis/NIR spectroscopy gives very reliable results and can be considered a green technology, representing a choice among applications of low environmental impact analytical technologies.

Redundancy Analysis to Reduce the High-Dimensional Near-Infrared Spectral Information to Improve the Authentication of Olive Oil

“…The authentication of EVOO requires the application of fast, reliable, and cost-effective analytical procedures with no or little sample manipulation, such as NIR spectroscopy. Besides, NIR spectroscopy can be considered a green technology because it involves a low environmental impact . The assignment of bands in the NIR spectrum is straightforward, but the application of chemometrics is required to extract the maximum relevant information from the spectrum.…”

NIR spectroscopy as an environmentally friendly method to determine the lipid and carbohydrate concentration in Lintong Arabica coffee bean

“…From that condition it is shown that a compound with lower percentage concentration will need a more complicated data pretreatment [8]. Moreover, result showed that NIR spectroscopy could be used as a green technology [11][12] that is needed nowadays to reduce the usage of chemicals. As shown in [11], comparing the environmental impact contribution between the usage of chemical and NIR analysis, it was found that an average value of 36 NIR analysis is equal to one chemical analysis.…”

Near Infrared Spectroscopy as a Green Technology for the Quality Prediction of Intact Olives

“…The economic significance of olive industries to the European Union is unquestionable. Europe contributed almost 70% of the world olive oil production in the 2018–2019 harvest year campaign and the resultant revenue was to the tune of five billion euro [ 1 ]. This large and continuously expanding industry is also associated with many negative environmental problems stemmed from waste production and inappropriate disposal, soil depletion, and atmospheric emissions [ 2 ].…”