DSC application on vegetable oils: the case of olive oils

DSC use on olive oil quality aspects present undisputable advantages as the absence of time-consuming manipulation practices or sample treatment and no use of toxic chemicals that could be hazardous for the analyst and the environment. Its application, however, has not been as consistent as other techniques (e.g. spectroscopy, chromatography) in this field of research, but a trend change was noted in the last two or three years. Fortunately, a growing interest has been shown by several research team, followed by an increasing literature data now available in research databases. The present chapter gives an overview of DSC application to olive oils in different aspects, including the correlation with the oil chemical composition (major and minor components), authentication, botanical and geographical origin, adulteration, and oxidative stability (auto-oxidation, photo-oxidation and thermo-oxidation).