Differentiation of lemon essential oil based on volatile and non-volatile fractions with various analytical techniques: a metabolomic approach

Due to the importance of citrus lemon oil for the industry, fast and reliable analytical methods that allow the authentication and/or classification of such oil, using the origin of production or extraction process, are necessary. To evaluate the potential of volatile and non-volatile fractions for classification purposes, volatile compounds of cold-pressed lemon oils were analyzed, using GC-FID/MS and FT-MIR, while the non-volatile residues were studied, using FT-MIR, 1H-NMR and UHPLC-TOF-MS. 64 Lemon oil samples from Argentina, Spain and Italy were considered. Unsupervised and supervised multivariate analyses were sequentially performed on various data blocks obtained by the above techniques. Successful data treatments led to statistically significant models that discriminated and classified cold-pressed lemon oils according to their geographic origin, as well as their production processes. Studying the loadings allowed highlighting of important classes of discriminant variables that corresponded to putative or identified chemical functions and compounds.