Scientific publications
Iuliana Lazăr
Brice Ulrich Saha Foudjo
Germain Kansci
Gabriel Lazăr
François‐Xavier Etoa
Environmental Engineering and Management Journal
Avocado post-harvest losses and cultivar-oriented trade are relevant issues in Cameroon that affect producers and retailers incomes.Identifying specific chemical characteristics of avocado oils would give an added value to underutilized species.Five avocado varieties, Booth 7, Booth 8, Collinson, Hickson and Lula, were subjected to aqueous extraction and the Attenuated Total Reflectance-Fourier Transformed Infrared spectrometry coupled with chemometrics (ATR-FTIR) profile of their extracted oils was analyzed to express their variability in terms of structural composition.The results showed that the oils have characteristic peaks within the region 900 to 1300 cm -1 that could be exploited in food control: 1167 cm -1 for Booth 7, 1164 cm -1 for Booth 8, 1157 cm -1 for Collinson, 1162 cm -1 for Hickson, 1164 cm -1 for Lula and 1165 cm -1 for the commercial oil which was used to compare.Principal Component Analysis used to classify the avocado oils based on their degree of unsaturation and their carboxyl ester group show similarity between Booth 7 and Collinson oil, Booth 8 and Hickson oil while Lula oil is totally different.This means that oils in the same cluster could be used for the same purpose in industries on chemical bases and identify during adulteration control on spectroscopic bases.Thus, ATR-FTIR spectrometry coupled with chemometrics have shown that neglected and appreciated avocados varieties share some similar properties that could be exploited by industries.
