Variation of δ 2 H, δ 18 O & δ 13 C in crude palm oil from different regions in Malaysia: Potential of stable isotope signatures as a key traceability parameter.

A total of 33 crude palm oil samples were randomly collected from different regions in Malaysia. Stable carbon isotopic composition (δ13 C) was determined using Flash 2000 elemental analyzer while hydrogen and oxygen isotopic compositions (δ2 H and δ18 O) were analyzed by Thermo Finnigan TC/EA, wherein both instruments were coupled to an isotope ratio mass spectrometer. The bulk δ2 H, δ18 O and δ13 C of the samples were analyzed by Hierarchical Cluster Analysis (HCA), Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and Orthogonal Partial Least Square-Discriminant Analysis (OPLS-DA). Unsupervised HCA and PCA methods have demonstrated that crude palm oil samples were grouped into clusters according to respective state. A predictive model was constructed by supervised OPLS-DA with good predictive power of 52.60%. Robustness of the predictive model was validated with overall accuracy of 71.43%. Blind test samples were correctly assigned to their respective cluster except for samples from southern region. δ18 O was proposed as the promising discriminatory marker for discerning crude palm oil samples obtained from different regions. Stable isotopes profile was proven to be useful for origin traceability of crude palm oil samples at a narrower geographical area, i.e. based on regions in Malaysia. Predictive power and accuracy of the predictive model was expected to improve with the increase in sample size. Conclusively, the results in this study has fulfilled the main objective of this work where the simple approach of combining stable isotope analysis with chemometrics can be used to discriminate crude palm oil samples obtained from different regions in Malaysia. Overall, this study shows the feasibility of this approach to be used as a traceability assessment of crude palm oils.