Recent advances in photoelectric methods application for cooking oil quality and safety evaluation: a review

Cooking oil is used daily in consumed food and culinary applications; therefore, its safety and quality are very important. Notably, susceptibility to contamination at each processing stage poses threats to living organisms. This review discusses the parameters of oil quality, as well as the role of the various non-destructive photoelectric techniques with respect to its quality and safety, including near-infrared spectroscopy (NIR), mid-infrared spectroscopy, Fourier transform near-infrared spectroscopy, Raman spectroscopy and fluorescence spectroscopy. Data on cooking oil quality, such as values of the following parameters, notably peroxides, thiobarbituric acid, anisidine, iodine, trans-fat and fatty acid profile, carbonyl compounds, adulteration and total polar components, are also demonstrated. Photoelectric methods are rapid and efficient tools for the preliminary screening of cooking oil when aiming to determine its quality before its entry into the food chain. Primarily, NIR has been used to predict most of the cooking oil safety and quality parameters, and thus is considered as the most convenient non-destructive method to be recommended. Accordingly, deep insight into state-of-the-art photoelectric/spectral technologies and the varieties of techniques available provides an opportunity to detect and predict the safety parameters of products prior to their processing and distribution. In this review, we highlight these perspectives with particular emphasis on the cooking oil. © 2025 Society of Chemical Industry.