In this study (open access) the researchers sought to identify chemical markers for lemon oil authenticity within the non-volatile components. This would provide an accessible LC-UV alternative to the typical approach of profiling the volatile (flavour) components by gas chromatography.
The authors focussed on 15 coumarins and furocoumarins (“oxygen heterocyclic compounds, OHCs”). They profiled the differences between authentic lemon oil and a range of commercial industrial lemon oils, and tested for significant differences using either single markers or combinations of markers. They concluded that he combination of isopimpinellin and total OHC concentration were very predictive markers for differentiating genuine lemon oil from commercial industrial substitutes. They successfully tested the model, with 98% accuracy, on 154 commercial oils on the US market.
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